Final Fantasy TCG Locals - February 26th, 2025

A day outside of my usual schedule, but due to unusual circumstances during my next week off from work I will be largely unable to attend any of my typical TCG nights, and wanted another night of gaming before I have to miss out for around three weeks.

I played my Scions for each game.

Casual Game vs. Crystals

We played three game against one another, effectively playing a Best of 3.

I took the first game thanks to successfully managing to work around their removal and throwing my own removal and aggression around.

The second game went to them thanks to basically the opposite. I couldn't keep their removal out of play, which meant that they could keep my board cleared off pretty adequately. 

Game 3 was a wildly fun back and forth, despite my winning 7-0, with us both throwing a bevy of removal back and forth. After the game, we agreed that Game 3 in no small part came down to their backup math breaking oddly for them, whereas my backup line was pretty full and bountiful, which meant I had ample resources to utilize. They did drop a Cecil that I've never seen from them before, evidently it's in their list as a 1-of. This made my removal options much trickier to use, as Cecil would cancel any effects if I didn't pay a little extra for them.

Casual Game vs. Mono-Ice

Two games against a newer player, both of which I won. They had never really played against a full-tilt aggro deck before, so they weren't completely sure how to handle a deck going that hard and fast against them. 

The first game, I had an early Estinien and told them outright that he was by far one of my most important attackers due to his ability to return my Scions to my hand when he swings. They still kept my Irvine on lockdown despite that, as they were concerned about his ability to remove their Break Zone from play. This meant I continued to have the breadth of resources that Estinien affords me, and the game was rather swiftly over in my favor. 

In the second, they gave me the chance to play first, which was likely the incorrect choice. I got my more or less ideal aggressive start, dropping a backup Alphinaud and following that with Estinien, using Estinien to pick back up the Thancred I had discarded to pay for one of the two. They dropped a Lasswell, which I remembered from Knights a few weeks back as being a tremendous roadblock for the way my deck operates, so when I drew Y'shtola, I immediately dropped her to hit Lasswell with -8000 power. A Thancred on the next turn removed their next threat. I proceeded to hit them over the next few turns getting them to 5 damage fast.

Around this time, the two more experienced players finished up their game, which was practice for them for an upcoming Winter Cup. One left, the other in turn started watching our game. That player began to help my opponent - which I was more than fine with - so that they could try to buy a few turns to stabilize with. With the assistance from the more experienced player, my opponent did successfully hold back my assault for three or four turns, but eventually their delay tactics didn't pan out, and I took the win.

Conclusion

I am wildly glad I took the time to come out for a few games despite not generally liking to do so on my last day before my work week. I enjoy the FFTCG a ton, and I know that I won't be able to play it during my normal Monday on my next week off - while I should be free for the normal night, all of the other players will be returning from the aforementioned Winter Cup that day, and won't likely be willing to come out for locals.

Plus, the person playing the Mono-Ice deck is an even newer player than myself, and I had never met them before tonight as we typically make it to different Local events. Meeting them was an additional benefit to coming out.

As I said at the beginning of this post, unusual circumstances mean I won't be able to do my normal TCG nights for my next week off, so I won't be posting beyond a "week off" reminder, unless Wednesday FFTCG fires again and I come out for that again.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - February 24th, 2025

Myself and two of the other players that showed for tonight's locals all showed up early, so we wound up getting a few friendly games in before the start of the games proper. 

Casual Game: Mono-Water Pirates vs. Sky Pirates/Retainers - Loss

I got down a couple of early bodies and did some early damage. They had a pretty slow start, but started building back after I got 4 damage in, with the Retainers and Noctis being able to search for each other and start removing my relatively small characters from the table.

This saw the tides turning against me, though my 3-drop Tidus meant there was a clock against them that they had to race.

A race that they ultimately won.

The Pirates continue to just feel like a worse version of the Scions, albeit with a few relatively unique tricks thanks to a different suite of available summons. Whiffing on the Opus 13 Viking, and then whiffing on an attempt to dig for an EX Burst with Lunafreya, felt incredibly bad.

Casual Game: Mono-Lightning Scions vs. Warriors of Light - Loss

I got a somewhat early lead, chunking out damage with Estinien and Thancred, but the Warriors eventually got Refia in play. This gave them removal practically on demand, which quickly turned the game in their favor.

This was the point where the actual Locals began. I played my Mono-Lightning Scions for the night. 

Game 1: Vs. Warriors of Light - Win

My first game was against the same opponent as the casual game I had just played.

I got a solid start, whereas they had a bit of a slower opening. I chunked out a fair bit of damage with Estinien fairly quickly.

They didn't successfully land a Refia until fairly late into the game, and I was able to successfully remove her, several times as they recurred or otherwise drew into other copies of her, keeping the removal from getting too far out of control and keeping the game more or less in my favor.

The final turn of the game saw me drop Cidolfus to search a 5-drop Odin, Prime Cid into Ramuh, and pop both of their blockers, clearing their board and freeing my Thancred to swing for the final point of damage.

Game 2: Vs. Crystals - Win

An opening Estinien did damage, removing one of their Cyans, which per my opponent is one of their better potential answers against my Scions. Turn 2, an attempt at removal forced them to spend a Crystal they had generated during theirs, in order to protect their Warrior of Light.

I continually went incredibly aggressive through the game, and partially because they had a poor opening backup line, the game went quickly in my favor.

They did play a Fire/Lightning Y'shtola of their own via Onion Knight, dealing a damage to themselves to give her haste and making her unblockable, with the self-damage and the damage from swinging into me going into popping my Y'shtola. My response to them swinging was to mostly wipe their board with my Y'shtola's Pulse of Creation special, then on my turn I played LB Cloud to remove their remaining blocker - the Y'shtola who, being a Scion, was safe from my Pulse of Creation. Swinging with Estinien and Alisaie put them at 6 damage, and they scooped during their next turn as they couldn't quite generate the crystals to wipe my board in return.

Game 3: Vs. Water-Lightning Crystals - Loss

A different crystals deck as my third and final game of the night, as well as my sole loss during the course of the Locals.

I had a fairly quick start, as Scions usually do.

But my opponent dropped a Raph a few turns in. More pertinently, I forgot about her ability to protect herself from Abilities and Summons, which meant that I wasted an LB Cloud trying to break her. After the game, my opponent told me that early misplay was probably my major downfall, leading to some dominos falling over the course of the rest of the game. There were other targets that came down in later turns that would have been great removal targets for a Cloud, but with mine in play I wasn't able to use Cloud against them. I could have blocked Raph with Cloud to "remove" my Cloud and free myself up to play another, but that wasn't something I thought about during the game.

Raph, along with a Lady Lilith who went unanswered due to a lack of removal available to me, beat me down pretty handily. Luck with EX Bursts similarly was not on my side, which contributed to the lack of removal options.

After the event, the two Crystal players played a few games that I watched, as they were practicing for an upcoming Winter Cup event. The games that they played were utterly fascinating to me to watch, with the Water-Lightning Crystal player pulling out a Mono-Water list to let the other Crystal player practice against, and it was fun and enlightening for me to watch the games and see how the games proceeded. The Mono-Water list won all three of the games I watched them play, heavily on the powerful back of Dion Priming into the FFXVI version of Bahamut, becoming a massive body that the Crystal deck had no really solid answers for while threatening powerful removal options on its own.

Pokémon League Cup & Challenge - February 23rd, 2025

Today at the card shop we ran a League Cup and a League Challenge, in addition to our normal casual Standard League play. 

I did not participate as a player, instead helping to judge and run the events as we attracted 26 players for the Cup alone, in addition to the players who came only for Standard and the Challenge.

Day Off - February 22nd, 2025

Under normal circumstances, today would have meant a trip out to the "second" card shop I frequent for Pokémon TCG, where today a trio of League Challenges - one each for the TCG, VGC, and Go - were being held.

However, I had entirely too many chores I needed to take care of, and plans to meet with other friends for what has become a monthly dinner in the evening, so if I would have gone, I would have likely arrived late, and needed to leave fairly early.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - February 21st, 2025

For tonight's Commander night, I only brought one deck with me, a modified version of the Aetherdrift Energy precon. I wanted to get in as many games with the deck as I could, as I've never played an Energy deck before and wanted to get as good a feel for it as possible.

Plus I've been considering putting together a Crystals deck for the Final Fantasy TCG, and Energy is a highly similar mechanic in many ways, so finding out if I enjoy this style of deck will also serve to tell me if it would be worth investing in the cards for a Crystals deck. Bonus points, as it were. I digress, today's post isn't about the FFTCG, it's about Commander.

There was also a small, unexpected bonus of being a Commander Party, so there was a small Aetherdrift racing-themed addition to the rules in the first of the four games that we played.

For all four of the following games, I was playing this Saheeli, Radiant Creator deck.

Game 1 vs Vnwxt, Verbose Host, Zinnia, Valley's Voice, and The Infamous Cruelclaw - Win

A quick summation of the first few turns: Zinnia was mana screwed, Vnwxt jetted out the gates swinging hard and fast, Cruelclaw was off to a decently fast start as well, and I built my position with a handful of Energy producers and a few small payoffs.

Vnwxt being a deck ostensibly built to make use of the "Start your engines!"/Speed mechanic from Aetherdrift got to make the most use of the race track from the Commander Party rules. Zinnia's player was incredibly grumpy about the addition of the speed mechanic, referring to it as being incredibly stupid and outright refusing to recognize it was an available option for them. Cruelclaw and I both simply forgot to even think about our Speed for the most part, as our decks did not intend to make use of it from the onset.

Eventually, we all kind of just stopped remembering to use the Aetherdrift Racetrack, because it added entirely too much to keep in mind easily. I still kind of like it in theory, personally, but with a deck that wasn't thinking about Speed, and with me having been genuinely unaware of the Commander Party until I had arrived at the store, it wasn't something I had been mentally prepared to take any advantage of.

Regardless. Between Vnwxt's early, evasive aggression and heavy mill package and Cruelclaw's genuinely powerful combat damage trigger, the game looked like it was set to be a battle between the two of them. Zinnia, having a heavy mana drought, eventually scooped.

I managed to resolve an Aether Revolt, and with my handful of Energy producers, I was able to stabilize on the field and took out Vnwxt's player, with Cruelclaw scooping not long after as I was able to consistently keep the mercenary weasel out of play with Conversion Apparatus providing me Energy counters on demand to fuel Aether Revolt's triggered ability.

Game 2 vs Zinnia, Three-Dog, Galaxy News DJ, and Hanna, Ship's Navigator - Loss

I didn't keep particularly detailed notes from this game, but the short of it was this:

Everybody got to do their thing, but Three-Dog did their things significantly harder. I tried to stabilize, but their board of ever-growing tokens and mass of enchantments, with Kellan the Fae-Blooded powering the tokens up dramatically, just overpowered the rest of us. 

Game 3 vs Skeleton Ship, Veyran, Voice of Duality, and Hylda of the Icy Crown - Loss

Skeleton Ship was the Three-Dog player from the previous game, and was swiftly bullied down to 1 life. This in addition to the fact that both Veyran and Hylda somewhat countered what the Skeleton Ship deck planned to do lead to the Skeleton Ship getting largely left alone after this.

This opened me up to aggression, and I was in fact the first player to be taken out. Charmbreaker Devils with Veyran doubling their triggers suddenly became a lethal threat that there was nothing I could do to stop.

Ironically enough, Veyran then scooped a few turns after due to Hylda's field of Enchantments making them effectively untouchable, as the Skeleton Ship player learned over several turns of not managing to do anything except delay the inevitable.

Game 4 vs Gavi, Nest Warden, Kwain, Itinerant Meddler, and Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter - Loss

An early High Noon from Gavi combined with a ton of card draw from Kwain meant an absurd amount of effective mill at the table, as everybody was drawing three to four cards a turn, but could only cast one spell.

This caused the game to drag out enormously, as Stax is wont to do. My attempt to use Primal Prayers to Flash creatures in during my opponent's turns, circumventing the "one spell per turn" restriction from the High Noon, was stymied by removal, though I was able to get two creatures into play off of it.

Eventually, the High Noon was removed, I was able to drop a number of mana rocks, and then Jan cast Farewell, exiling everything except for their Daretti, Scrap Savant.

This was followed by Gavi managing to take down Daretti, then cycling a Decree of Annihilation during Kwain's upkeep. This left everybody's boards completely barren. Jan scooped at that stage, as there was nothing that they could possibly do with an empty board. I was soon after taken out by Gavi.

Kwain, who had a massive hand due to a Reliquary Tower meaning that they'd been the only one not discarding everything that they drew, slowly but surely built a small, but effective pillow fort while Gavi took me down over the course of two turns. The game ended in a draw when Kwain cast a Windfall, with Kwain and Gavi drawing over thirty cards and decking out.

CONCLUSION

So, this isn't a normal section of these blog posts, but since I went into tonight planning to play my new Saheeli deck as much as possible and feel it out, see if I enjoyed the kind of deck it is, let alone enjoyed the deck itself, and in fact opened tonight's post up by bringing attention to that idea, I figured that it would be worth at least a small "conclusion" segment here.

And the conclusion I reached is that this deck was an absolute blast to play. I don't often feel like I get a deck 100% "right" in its first iteration, and I don't know if I would say that even this one is 100% right, but it's incredibly near it, in my opinion. There was nearly no point in any of the four games where I felt like I had zero options on what I could do, with the obvious exception of the fourth and final game after Farewell and Decree of Annihilation completely wiped out the board. Even if all I did was enter combat and make a 5/5 copy of one of my mana rocks or my lands with Saheeli and swung with it, it was still an option that I had available to me. Keeping track of my triggers for when I generated Energy counters and everything I could do with them was a small bit of extra bookkeeping, but nothing strenuous.

With Energy being such a sparsely utilized mechanic, it also isn't a deck that feels like it will need to be updated with any significant frequency, which is great for me as I am a budget player at heart. Are there ways that the deck could be upgraded at expense? Sure. But it felt good where it currently is. Under the recently-revealed bracket system, Moxfield estimates the deck to be a Bracket 2 - the "Core" experience, roughly where preconstructed decks are tuned to land. But it managed to hang on its own in Game 4 against the Jan Jansen deck, whose owner reported to be Bracket 4.

Now, is that in part because of Gavi's High Noon meant that everybody was slowed down drastically? Sure. But the point stands that the deck felt good. It felt strong enough to hang with heavier hitting decks, but not overbearing to where it ran away with the other, "lower power" games.

Pokémon League Locals - February 20th, 2025

A normal, 4-round League Night, playing my Festival Lead Dipplin deck. 

Round 1 vs. Maushold ex - Loss

So it turns out that Maushold ex, while not a particularly "good" deck from a competitive standpoint, is effectively a hard counter to Festival Lead Dipplin.

My only attackers having incredibly low HP counts coupled with the damage that Maushold ex deals in retaliation meant that I could not reliably deal any significant damage, let alone take knock outs and prizes. My Festival Lead "double strikes" would be cut short by the fact that, with two Tandemaus on the bench and a Rocky Helmet for additional insult to injury, each attack would mean 110 retaliatory damage, which would instantly knock out my Dipplins and prevent me from being able to attack further.

And then the Maushold ex itself attacked for 120 damage, ensuring another knock out while also drawing my opponent two more cards. And while my deck does run a single copy of Canceling Cologne for this sort of matchup, that does me precious little good when that Cologne is locked away in my Prizes.

Round 2 vs. Charizard ex - Loss

My opponent had an incredibly fast start, and I had a comparatively slow one. Hilariously, this was the same opponent a few weeks ago who was playing Lugia VSTAR and had the nearly ideal start against me then, too.

Despite the difference in starts, it was a fairly close game thanks to my being a Single Prize deck. With my opponent being ahead by about two prizes, I got set up to take a knock-out against their Charizard. They then took my Dipplin down, and I was unable to find another Dipplin to get set back up before they got a Dusclops turn set up to take their last two prizes.

Round 3 vs Festival Lead Dipplin - Loss

I won the flip to choose who would get to play first. Knowing it was a mirror match because they were at the table beside me during my previous game, I went first with the knowledge that, basically, this game would boil down to whoever could evolve their Applin and attack first. At the end of the first turn, I was set that I would be able to evolve an Applin and a Grookey and be in a fantastic position. 

Then my opponent played an Iono during their turn, and I failed to draw a replacement for either Dipplin or Thwackey, let alone both. My next turn did not help with that. They, on the other hand, got set up wonderfully. The game quickly went in their favor after that. I was only able to get one Dipplin set up after that and did take some knock outs, but they had more Dipplins set up and were able to retaliate.

I made an attempt to stall by using Counter Catcher to trap their Thwackey in the active, but a Rescue Board and a Bug-Catching Set picking up a Grass Energy saw their Thwackey successfully retreating back into their Dipplin, at which point that was the end.

Round 4 vs Terapagos ex - Win

I set up pretty quickly with a full bench and a Vitality Band on a Dipplin by the end of my second turn.

Along with a Kieran in hand and a second Dipplin set up with a Maximum Belt, this spelled an incredibly rapid end to the game as I took three two-prize knock outs over the course of about four turns. I was delayed only by not having sufficient damage to immediately knock out a Terapagos ex after my setup - with the Vitality Band, I could only hit for 220, versus the Tera Turtle's 230 HP.

So my conclusion after tonight's 1-3 finish?

I still deeply love the Festival Lead deck, it is tremendous fun to play, and I will be trying to figure out how to modify it post-rotation so that I can continue to play it despite losing cards like Manaphy and Bibarel. But, after the past few weeks having been a bit underwhelming in terms of wins, I think I'm going to set it aside for a little while and bring my Ancient Box deck back out.

My list hasn't been updated in a while, so it still operates with both Primordial Beatdown Koraidon for earlier turns alongside Vengeance Fletching Roaring Moon to end the game with. That said, the list was always a little tight for space, so there hasn't been much that would have altered it regardless. I was also already tempted to have played it tonight because I've missed it, so a short break from the candied apple dragon will hopefully serve me well.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - February 10th, 2025

I arrived an hour and a half early, and another player arrived fairly early as well. We played a Best of 3 casual game while waiting for the others to arrive so that the structured event could begin. 

Casual Game: Mono Water Pirates vs. Crystals

I took the first game pretty handily, thanks to a fast, aggressive start and their inability to find answers to my board in time. 

The second game, I had a similarly fast start, but they had a much better board of their own and were able to answer my board with a wipe, after which I just couldn't rebuild. 

The third game was a similar affair to the second, where it was a close game until very suddenly it wasn't. A mistake on my end - which they offered to let me roll back, but I declined - was not removing their Y'shtola, which then let them wipe my board and keep it clear thereafter, cinching them the victory. 

Playing these three games, I concluded that while I like the Vikings/Pirates deck, it feels in a lot of ways like it's just a worse version of my Scions deck.

After our third game, we played a still-casual "for realsies" game, with me pulling out my Mono Lightning Scions deck due to the above-mentioned conclusion.

Casual Game: Mono Lightning Scions vs. Crystals

A fast-paced, aggressive start put me in a super advantageous position, from which they simply weren't able to recover.

A board wipe from Y'shtola was the point where they scooped, as their only hope - by their own words - was removing my Alisaie and hoping to be able to block enough damage to survive my turn, which my board wipe prevented.

After this casual game, the four of us who showed up finally started our "actual" event, and I wound up paired against the same opponent for my first round.

I stuck with my Mono Lightning Scions list for the rest of the night.

Game 1 vs. Crystals - Loss

This game played out pretty differently to the casual game we had just finished, and likewise the result was different. This time, they had the resources to circumvent my board wipe, and were able to slip enough damage by my blockers thanks to a few effects making several of their attackers unblockable, and even when I took out a few of their Forwards, it wasn't enough.

There were a few ways I could have taken my last turn, but their Sol made it nigh-impossible for me to remove enough of their field to survive, and when they top-decked not one but two copies of a Zidane that I couldn't have blocked, that was the end of the game.

Not drawing an Estinien slowed me down quite a bit, and I wasn't able to pull enough removal options to keep their board in check.

Game 2 vs. Knights - Loss

An early Lasswell slowed me down, and a second Lasswell replacing the first one after I removed it continued to keep me locked down so that I couldn't play the aggressive game I otherwise would have had.

I did eventually reach a point where I felt like I had managed to stabilize, removing most of their board, but I was already at 5 damage when I managed it. A 7-drop Ramza on their final turn brought back Curilla, whom I had destroyed with an EX Burst Odin, which refilled their board. One of the Knights they hit was a 1-drop Agrias who bounced my Y'shtola, leaving me with only one blocker. Ramza broke my Ramuh, dealt me one damage, and left me with no blockers after which they swung in for the final point of damage. 

Those early Lasswells locking me down were utterly killer, keeping me from playing the aggressive game that Scions want to be playing. Likewise, if I could have foreseen the possibility of Ramza leading them into such an explosive final turn, I would have left one more blocker available, rather than taking an extra point of damage on what had been my final turn.

But, of course, I had not foreseen that, due in part to unfamiliarity with how Knights as a deck work.

Game 3 vs. "Mono" Earth - Loss

We both spent the first few turns building board positions with backups.

When I finally started getting Forwards and tested the waters with a little bit of aggression, I dealt a couple of points of damage, but the game kept going back and forth despite that. Both of us played a significant amount of removal to keep each other's boards in check.

In the end, they got their board stabilized and finally took down enough of my board that they ultimately took it. Hitting no EX Bursts on my damage didn't help me, but simply put I don't think there was anything I really could have done differently with what resources I had available.

Pokémon League Locals - February 9th, 2025

 At the card shop where I do most of my TCG playing, we ran a small "Learn to Play GLC" event of sorts today, primarily headed by one of the other Professors.

After a short presentation about some of the foibles of the GLC format, people split off into pairs and played some games of the format in order to acclimate themselves to it, with many people borrowing decks from the other Professor.

For my part, I had just made significant changes to my Water GLC deck - previously, it was focused around Rapid Strike Pokémon from the Sword & Shield era of the TCG, but I changed it to shift the focus from Rapid Strike and towards being closer to a more typical "Rain Dance/Hydro Pump" style of list, utilizing the Pokémon Go set's Blastoise as both a potential acceleration tool and a hard-hitting attacker. So I used my own Water list against one of the learning players using the other Professor's Fire deck.

Yes, I did feel a little bad for it upon realizing which deck they had chosen.

Casual Gym Leader Challenge: Water vs. Fire - Win

Now, the thing you might think from the basics of the match-up - most, if not all Fire Pokémon having a weakness to Water - is that this was a blowout in my favor, that I handily ran away with the game.

You would be incorrect. Yes, as I noted, I did win, but it wasn't total devastation. This thanks to the equalizing magic of TCGs: Luck.

My starting hand was, frankly, bad. I was forced to start with a Manaphy and not much else. In addition, they won the coin flip and went second, so their opening was drastically better. Almost ideal, even. They opened with Chi-Yu, got an Entei on the bench, followed up with Nest Ball and Float Stone, which turned into a Flare Starter Volcanion. Float Stone on the goldfish, then a Professor's Research for a refilled hand was all it took to get Volcanion set up to attack and accelerate a ton of energy onto the field.

Those first few turns after that did not look good for me. 110 damage a pop from Volcanion was chunky damage, and while I tried to build up my position, they took a good number of prizes off of me. I finally managed to hit the PoGo Blastoise and ended my turn with Vitality Spring, where I was confronted with the fact that I hadn't been counting energy cards, and only had around 4 in total to play with. Admittedly, that was enough to set Blastoise itself up for success, but I was in a bad way if anything happened to my turtle.

Fortunately, nothing bad happened to my turtle. I was able to use Blastoise to tie the game back up, and in fact taking the lead by one, with Blastoise soaking a few hits in the process. By the time Blastoise finally went down, I had managed to set up my Wishiwashi, a Rapid Strike holdout in the deck, with enough energy to trigger its Group Power. Several Schooling Shots later - and soaking a PoGo Charizard's big 170 damage attack - finally put the game into my hands.

After the game, I poked around the store a little bit, watched some of the other learners as they played their games, and bought a few packs, both Pokémon and Magic: the Gathering, because I was itching to crack some packs open.

Eventually, another newish player, whom I've actually played against at this store's Friday Night Commander before, wanted to play a game of Standard. So I shuffled up my Festival Lead Dipplin deck to fulfill that request.

Casual Standard: Festival Lead Dipplin vs. Raging Bolt - Loss

Kind of poetically, what happened in this game was in some ways the inverse of what went down in the GLC game I had played earlier. I still lost the coin flip, and still went first, starting with a Grookey active. But I was able to hit a slightly better start, having not one but two Bug-Catching Sets, nabbing an Applin and a second Grookey off of the first one, then two Grass Energy with the second. I dropped my 'mons to the bench, attached an energy to the active Grookey, and passed.

My opponent had a somewhat slower start, but still fairly decent. My turn came around, though, and that's when things went quickly in my favor. Attaching an energy to my Applin, then playing a Buddy-Buddy Poffin loaded my bench up a little more, an Iono refilled my hand, giving me a filled bench, along with a Dipplin to evolve into, and a Thwackey whose Boom-Boom Groove turned into a second Thwackey, which in turn gave me my Maximum Belt. My opponent's look of shock when I OHKO'd their Raging Bolt with a candied apple was pretty nice. My next turn saw me take down a Teal Mask Ogerpon for two more prizes.

After which, my fortunes were basically shot. They got a Raging Bolt set up, along with energy to spare on their bench, which included more Ogerpons, and this saw the end of my Max Belt Dipplin.

Now, and this was incredibly my mistake, my bench was full. But it was not full of other Dipplins ready to go. I had my Manaphy despite knowing Raging Bolt doesn't do any spread, Cleffa who could have easily been my pivot, and Bibarel to help me draw cards. I had failed to do the math in my head and realize that a Dipplin with the Max Belt would only need 4 'Mons on the bench to be able to take down a Raging Bolt. So that meant I didn't have a second Dipplin ready to step up, which ended up being my downfall in the long run.

So while I tried to set up another Dipplin, they managed to Boss or Pokémon Catcher my Applins before I could get them prepared. I did eventually get a second and even a third Dipplin set up, but my burned resources and prized Super Rod meant I wasn't able to finish the game out, because when I got my second Dipplin in place, I wasn't able to KO their Raging Bolt. But I did weaken it in a big way, which I could have capitalized on to finish the game, but when I went to Boom-Boom Groove for a necessary energy, I realized all four that I run were already in the discard pile.

Forced to use a Lana's Aid for recovery, I was unable to Boss the weakened Bolt back into play, meaning that I took out the non-ex Sandy Shocks I had brought up with a Counter Catcher to stall with, but they sent out a second, uninjured Raging Bolt that they had managed to get set up after they took control of the game. My second Do the Wave was nowhere near sufficient to take it down, and on the very next turn, they finished the job and took their final prize card.

After a little chatting, me and the same player then played a game of GLC to introduce them to the format. They borrowed a Water deck from the Professor who had been the main person in charge of the learn to play, and I used my Metal deck because I have been considering taking it apart, and wanted to give it one last go before I decided to fully pull that trigger.

Casual Gym Leader Challenge: Metal vs. Water - Loss

In some ways, it's good that I used my Metal deck, both for my own "Yes, this deck does not work the way I want it to, I should take it apart" peace of mind, and because this player had never played GLC before, so it gave them the opportunity to learn what they were doing and how the deck they were playing worked to put all of the pieces together.

Once again, I lost the coin flip and went first, after three mulligans on my end. An omen about the way this game was about to go for me, in hindsight.

I opened with Crown Zenith Zacian, used Nest Ball to grab Galarian Meowth, and on their turn when they set up a slightly more impressive board I got hit for a minor amount of damage. On my turn, I had a significantly improved position. I dropped an Artazon, used Meowth's ability to go grab Steely Spirit Perrserker, played a Marnie to replace my hand, and wound up with a mostly-full bench enabling me to Battle Legion for a decent 70 damage for a quick KO.

There was a little bit of back and forth after that, but once they got Seismitoad into play and ready to rumble, the game was quickly over. The extra energy costs on my attacks wound up, unironically, losing me the game, in no small part because I had completely forgotten about it. I had sent up a fully stocked Orthworm, ready to attack, wearing a Luxurious Cape for extra HP since Palafin had done a small number on it and the Seismitoad would have otherwise KO'd it in one shot, but when I went to actually make the attack, I realized I couldn't due to Seismitoad's Quaking Zone ability. This meant I had to pass, the Seismitoad took the first shot on my Orthworm, and while I did manage to follow up with the Shoot Through the next turn, it wasn't the KO it would have been.

I wasn't able to recover after Field Blower removed my Cape - KOing the Orthworm - and my Jirachi's Escape Board, followed by my Perrserker getting KO'd when I promoted it. It was a slow loss thereafter, as I kept hoping to draw my Metang so I could hopefully set up an attack.

I really wish my Metal deck were better than it is. It has some fun tricks going on with it - Orthworm being able to be an utterly massive 330 HP wall that chunks out 100 damage at a time while also sniping the bench for 30 is impressive if it gets set up. Zacian's Battle Legion being able to get incredibly fast KOs in the early game, Galarian Perrserker's Steely Spirit being a Muscle Band for my entire board, Metang's Metal Maker being potentially amazing energy acceleration, Jirachi with Escape Board being one of the most powerful pivots ever, all of these are theoretically powerful cards that can do great things. But my Metal Deck is just missing something to make it properly click together the way I want it to.

Ah well. Like I said, I've been thinking about taking it apart as it is, especially since it has a handful of strong GLC staples that I don't have many copies of, which would potentially free those cards up for me to use in, for example, my Water deck, or to try building a different list entirely.

Pokémon League Locals - February 8th, 2025

There was a Gym Leader Challenge event at this shop today. I played my Fairy Control deck.

Game 1 vs. Water - Tie

This game wound up a draw. I was stalling behind Robo Substitute with Lillie's Poké Doll on the bench, they were stuck with an Alolan Vulpix active despite a wildly impressive bench, and we hit time during my turn, meaning that even if they did take knockouts during their two turns, it would have been for 0 prizes.

In slight fairness, it was a new-ish player who was borrowing the deck, wasn't completely certain how it was meant to play, and hadn't bothered to attach energy to retreat the Vulpix. If they had, the game may have gone incredibly differently, as they would have had a strong attacker set up and able to start chewing through my dolls and my 'mons.

Game 2 vs. Psychic - Loss

Not to take anything from my opponent, because they played incredibly well, but a not-insignificant portion of what happened to me in this game was that I drew like absolute garbage.

I got basically none of my tools to actually build a board presence with, and once they got a Giratina in play and loaded up with energy, it was a quick affair of KO after KO. Especially with a Munkidori moving away the damage being dealt to their own bench with Giratina's Shadow Impact, and combined with the low HP counts of most Fairy Pokémon it was easy for them to clear out what things I could get benched.

Game 3 vs. Fire - Loss

My opponent had an outrageously slow start, to the point that they very nearly conceded within the first few turns. Fortunately they elected not to, because this turned into a phenomenal game in my opinion.

Between Team Rocket's Handiwork, Miss Fortune Sisters, and several resources used to recur and reuse both of them, I milled out a large portion of their deck. They eventually got a Nine-Tailed Dance Ninetails set up to start taking knock outs that circumvented my Bench Barrier Mr. Mime, then they got a Skeledirge established to start knocking out my active Pokémon for several turns, leading to them taking their sixth and final prize during the last few turns after time had been called.

As close and tense as this game wound up being, though, I was incredibly thrilled with the way it went even though I lost.

Game 4 vs. Fighting - Tie

Another moderately slow start for my opponent, whose deck was full of Pokémon that deal high damage for low energy investment. The suite of low cost, high power attacks made it nigh-impossible for me to pick a target to attempt a Boss stall, especially given the fairly low HP counts on the vast majority of my Fairies. A couple of successful uses of Crushing Hammer did slow them for a few turns, but they pretty quickly drew and searched for new energies to replace the ones I had removed.

For the first time since making the changes to my deck, I saw a double-tails coin flip with a Team Rocket's Handiwork, which was unfortunate. I likewise didn't see a significant portion of the tools my deck thrives on, especially the Supporter recursion options, which did make it hard for me to attempt to impact the game the way I would have liked.

That said, I did successfully stall them out long enough that we hit time, then simply went back and forth for all three turns, ending the game in a draw.

Friday Night Magic Commander - February 7th, 2025

A bit of a spoiler alert, I didn't win a single game tonight. But eh, that's just how Commander goes sometimes. Still had a blast with the pod of 3 I joined in with, making a pod of 4 for every game.

Game 1 - Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser vs. Gitrog, Ravenous Ride, Amalia Benavides Aguirre, and Red Death, Shipwrecker

My inaugural game using my newest deck, and this was not a great game for it. The Gitrog player has been burned by Nelly decks in the past, and especially with the Gitrog, Ravenous Ride there isn't much that can be done if Nelly could've stayed on board to lock the behemoth frog monster down with her Suspect-and-Goad attack trigger.

What this translates to is that Gitrog hated me down incredibly hard, incredibly early. I did a little bit of Goading and did have a good time with my deck for its inaugural game, but it was nowhere near enough to keep me in the game for long.

Game 2 - Krenko, Mob Boss vs. Loot, Exuberant Explorer, Amalia, and Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

This game was a slightly slow start, but once I got Krenko down, I was able to expand my board presence decently. My first use of Krenko generated 4 tokens, but everybody at the table knew what Krenko could do if left unchecked. Still, everybody else at the table were also generating frightening threats of their own. Except for Sokrates, who I did knock down to 6 life, only for Loot's player to finish them off on their next turn.

While trying to dig through my deck to find answers - and, more to the point, to find one of my deck's infinite combo lines - I inadvertently triggered Amalia's "20 power, destroy the board" effect. After which, Amalia played an Ascent from Avernus to revive almost their entire graveyard, and the writing was simply on the wall at that stage.

Game 3 - Narci, Fable Singer vs. Jacob Hauken, Inspector, Doran, the Siege Tower, and Kastral, the Windcrested

The first few turns of the game saw everybody simply building up their mana, but a hefty turn 4 from Hauken's player, fueled by a High Tide, saw Hauken become the table's archenemy thanks to a host of free spells powering their field. Unfortunately, the free spells, combined with a Shark Typhoon generating an army of flying shark tokens, was just too much. None of the rest of us were able to find sufficient answers to handle Hauken's ever-growing board and ability to cast effectively every spell they could want for free.

Game 4 - Nelly Borca vs. Tinybones, Bauble Burglar, Kastral, and Doran

An early Nelly and Tinybones set the game up as quite aggressive, Kastral played a Mockingbird to copy Tinybones to make discarding quite ridiculous for us all, and a Rankle's Prank from the actual Tinybones player filled up their joint stash quite decently, and wiped most of the early creatures. 

Doran dropped a collection of enchantments to bolster his own position, while I tried to rebuild. A moderate lack of card draw kept me from being able to bounce back as quickly as I would have liked, but a Smuggler's Share helped a little on that front.

Tinybones was the first to fall, with both Kastral and Doran focusing them down fairly hard.

Last March of the Ents gave Doran an outrageous board, prompting Kastral to play a mass bounce spell to buy time to find answers. It proved insufficient, as Noxious Revival brought Last March back, allowing Doran to replay their entire board and run away with the game.

I realized on my drive home from the card store that I didn't draw as many cards as I should have been. The last handful of turns, I completely forgot Nelly's trigger, but given Doran's imposing army of trees, I don't think that the extra cards would have saved me in the end. I simply wasn't able to find anything I needed to deal with the field that they established, and the odds were against me drawing my few potential outs, especially as Doran was sitting at over 100 life by the end of the game.

Day Off - February 6th, 2025

No games today, so not much of a post to make.

My work week was rough. I direly needed a day off, so I skipped my usual Pokémon League.

Still planning to do the rest of my week, though. So look forward to either Commander or an Aetherdrift prerelease tomorrow, a bunch of Pokémon TCG Gym Leader Challenge over the weekend, and hopefully Final Fantasy TCG on Monday.