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.
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