Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier - May 31st, 2025

 Today was a Local Qualifier for FFTCG at a shop around an hour and a half or two hours' drive away from me. Funnily enough, the shop in question is one that I used to go to regularly to play HeroClix years and years ago, before I moved to my current address for work, so this was almost a homecoming of sorts for me in some ways. But I digress.

For the duration of today's tournament, I played a new deck that I actually only got the final pieces for at the event from another player. This may have proven to be a mistake for me, in the long run, given my performance left a lot to be desired.

Much like the last LQ I attended I wound up going 1-4, much to my significant consternation. My match-ups were as follows:

Game 1 vs. Knights

The long and short of it is that I never found my engine to get "online" and really have any luck establishing a board state. I had bits and pieces, but I was unable to find everything and put up any resistance against the Knights, which did Knights things against me.

Game 2 vs. Water/Lightning Monsters

Unfortunately for me, my opponent had added cards to their list that were just about tailor-made to counter my deck's entire strategy. A Serah Forward reduced my entire board's power by 2000, which wiped out almost all of my Vikings handily, and Ixion wiping out all 2-cost Forwards finished the job that Serah couldn't. While I did start to rebuild, eventually my opponent was able to get enough Cat XIII Forwards in play to bump Serah's power reduction from 2000 up to 5000, handily preventing me from playing anything other than a Golbez, and effectively locking me out of the game.

Game 3 vs. Water/Lightning Scions

Scions operated in a way that I could only wish my deck would have ever worked for me. That the Scions also had copies of Ixion to wipe my board alongside Y'shtola's Pulse of Creation was extra trouble for my game plan.

Game 4 vs. Mono-Fire

Just absolutely my most frustrating game of the day, at least on my end. I know that it happens, but my opponent having the exact out at every turn was wildly frustrating.

I went first, and turn 1 I ended with two Vikings and a Yuna in play. At the end of my turn - before they've taken theirs - they play Brynhildr to take out my Yuna, paying the tax when I tried to prevent it with her. Their turn, they dropped a Clive and primed into Ifrit, wiping out my two Vikings and dealing me some damage. A few turns of trying to hold them at bay later, I managed to hold resources to play a Golbez. As I went to move into the Attack Phase, they showed me another copy of Ifrit (XVI) in hand, using Spitfire to break my Golbez, which was the point where I decided that I just had to scoop. There was nothing I could do against the Ifrit at that point, and I'm not proud of how incredibly upset I felt over this game in particular.

Game 5 vs. Cadets

The only game I played in the LQ that I took the win in, and the only one where my deck "did its thing". My opening hand gave me both Golbez and Yuna, and my field snowballed heavily from there, keeping the Cadets locked down in the exact way that the deck hopes to do.

After my frustration in Game 4, I was glad to have the win, but I'm sure it was incredibly frustrating for the Cadets player to be on the receiving end of my deck's shenanigans.

After a little bit of a break for food, I popped back into the shop to play a few friendlies with one of the local players who had also made the drive down.

Casual Games vs. Sky Pirates - Win

Myself and the other local played two games with my using my 47 Forward Golbez deck - the list I used through the LQ - while they used their Sky Pirates list that they had been playing in the LQ to much greater success than I had seen during the event.

And because my deck decided to actually do its thing in a way that it hadn't all day, even in my final game of the LQ against Cadets, I absolutely destroyed the Sky Pirates in two games in a row. It was great to have my deck work in such a phenomenal way, even if I also felt a little bad for how badly it overwhelmed the Sky Pirates list.

After two games of the Sky Pirates getting beaten down by my Golbez list, they pulled out their Crystals deck, and I pulled out my own Crystals list.

Casual Games vs. Crystals - Loss

And to put things succinctly, in three games that we played, I did not take a single one. While my list tried to focus on a more straightforward Fire/Wind list, they had a splash of Lightning in their deck as well, which gave them additional tools that I didn't have access to. This, alongside their greater familiarity with playing Crystals, gave them a significant advantage in these games over me. I held my own fairly reasonably, but as I said I ultimately wasn't able to cinch it in any of our games.

I do enjoy my Crystals list, but it doesn't always feel like it enjoys me. While I will be focusing more on my Golbez list for the foreseeable future, I do want to try to get some practice in with my Crystals as well, so that I can get better at piloting it.

But that's problems for the future.

Rest Day - May 30th, 2025

I elected to sit Commander Night at the card shop out tonight.

Partially there's just a lack of desire to drive out to the shop, but more pertinently is the fact that I'm going to be participating in another Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier tomorrow, and would like the night to rest and relax before I make my way down to that store in the morning.

While Commander is obviously fun - I wouldn't keep driving out and participating in Commander Night otherwise - spending the night mentally draining myself by playing another card game until fairly late into the evening seems like a good way to make sure I'm not at my best before the LQ tomorrow.

So I'll be back tomorrow with a write-up of my performance at the FFTCG Local Qualifier. With some luck, I'll do better than I did at the previous LQ I attended.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - May 19th, 2025

 After my poor showing at yesterday's LQ, I was looking forward to tonight's much more casually-minded Locals. I also, admittedly, wasn't completely certain that enough people would show up for us to have an actual event fire, but to my mild surprise, we had a total of 5 players show up, including myself. Almost everybody who did were all newcomers, with I honestly believe myself as the most veteran player of the group tonight.

One of the others showed up quite early, as did I, so we played a couple of extra-casual games with one another.

Casual Game: Crystals vs Crystals

My first game with my Crystals since some slight changes after I had played it last, and...

Well, it barely operated like a Crystal deck. I had few generators show, and even fewer payoff options. Near the end of the game, I did finally start to see some of my Crystals, and most pertinently I saw Cyan, who I was able to use to clear away my opponent's board for the victory. But in the interim, I was operating as a mediocre Fire/Wind "aggro" deck.

My opponent, for their part, put up a valiant effort against me. They were using the deck from the Dissidia Anniversary Box, and were stymied significantly by my turn 1 Cecil making my Forwards all that much more costly to remove, until they eventually did manage to remove Cecil himself. But the amount of resources that were burned over the course of the game could very feasibly have made a significant difference in how everything played out.

As I said, I took the win. As we still had some time, we began a second game.

Casual Game: Golbez/Yuna Vikings vs Crystals

A deck that I put together literally this afternoon before heading out to the shop, as I plan to shift gears for this format into a deck with a more streamlined version of this deck's game plan, this was my inaugural game. My opponent continued playing their Dissidia Starter deck.

To put things both quickly and bluntly, this did not go well for them. I forget the specifics of how this game went, just that I got both Golbez and Yuna out and active, I had a board full of Vikings at one point, and eventually I remembered to play my LB WoL to protect my field from removal effects.

This was around the time that we had all five players show, so we bought in, and after confirming that nobody else was likely to be arriving, the shop divvied us out into pairings for the night.

I continued to run the Golbez/Yuna Vikings list throughout the night, as I wanted the practice.

Game 1 vs Yuna/Knights - Loss

The same opponent who had been using the Dissidia Starter in the two casual games just above, this was when they pulled out a dangerous deck. I lost our die roll, and they went first.

And to put things both quickly and bluntly, this did not go well for me. Turn 1 was just a Larsa for Gawain and pass, my turn 1 wasn't super impressive either, and then turn 2 they played Gawain to search Ramza and Curilla, whom they proceeded to then play, filling their board. I was immediately behind, and largely failed in my efforts to play catch-up.

Game 2 vs Warriors of Light - Win

This game, unlike the above, went much more swimmingly for me. I was the one who put my opponent on the defensive with a quickly-filled board, and with Yuna kept them locked down for most of the game. One strong point that risked derailing my entire game was when I made the mistake of not playing my LB WoL, which enabled an EX Burst Brynhildr to break Yuna. I rectified the mistake, and eventually hit another Yuna off of Golbez, which cleared the way for me to pummel them with Vikings safely.

Game 3 vs Turks - Win

I felt a little bad about this one. My opponent was using a deck that was mostly the Shinra deck from the FF7 Two-Player Starter set. I was using a deck that's a strong contender in the current meta, albeit a deeply unoptimized version of it.

They had a field of strong Forwards, but once again getting Yuna, Golbez, and a board full of Vikings in play meant that I was able to keep those Forwards locked down while safely swinging damage in with Golbez. LB WoL hit the field early to make sure I didn't get caught unawares by any EX Burst removal again, and I generally kept the game under complete control. My opponent, for their part, was a great sport about it, and was mostly excited to see the Yuna/Vikings deck in action, as they had heard about it being strong, but were unaware of just how strong it could be.

After the game, I showed my final opponent my other two "real" decks - my Scions and my Crystals - and explained roughly how each of them works as I was. Eventually, they needed to leave, but I wanted to get one final game in, to try out a different deck that I built entirely to be a fun, casual "jank" list, so the only player tonight that I hadn't already played against agreed to play me.

Casual Game: Manikins vs Dark Golbez Archfiends

So just, going into this, I fully anticipated losing. The Manikins list was built on a lark because it was cute, the whole list ran me $6 total, and $4 of that was shipping costs, and it gives me a more casual list to play against new players - like my final opponent - who may not have anything "current" and ready to tussle with my other, stronger decks. My opponent used Archfiends, partially at my urging since I wanted to see it in action, and partially because their other deck would've needed to cannibalize a few pieces from the Archfiends list anyways, so just using that deck saved us both some time.

And I did, in fact, lose the game about as handily as I anticipated. But it was a fun game regardless! I was excited to see the Archfiends in action, and my opponent thought that the Manikins were a fun deck in their entire concept. We both enjoyed ourselves a ton, and at the end of the day, isn't that what playing card games is about?

Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier - May 18th, 2025

 Normally, today would have been a Pokémon day for me. However, the Final Fantasy TCG, months ago, announced the schedule for Local Qualifiers, and today was one that was about a two-hour drive away for me.

Naturally, I sought to attend. The Final Fantasy TCG is a ton of fun, I want to play it more frequently, and there was a chance I could have won the event and gotten some sweet prizing.

(Spoiler Alert: I did not win the event, and in fact I scrubbed out hard.)

The downside was that at my local card shop, we had a Prerelease Event for the next Pokémon TCG set, Destined Rivals, alongside Double Header Cups + Challenges for both VGC and Go. The Double Headers had been planned some time ago, around the time I had made the decision to attend today's LQ, while the Destined Rivals Prerelease was significantly more recent due to Pokémon dropping the release date for the set somewhat unexpectedly (or at least, unexpectedly to me).

But I digress! I hauled myself out of bed exceptionally early this morning, piled myself and my FFTCG supplies into my car - including my Scions Deck, which I played in today's event - and drove two hours to, first, get some breakfast with other local players, and then to the shop for the LQ.

It was 5 rounds of Best of 1 Swiss, followed by a cut to Top 8. I went 1-4, getting walloped severely. While I don't have specific notes, I do know roughly where each game went wrong for me:

Round 1 vs Knights:

Simply put, Knights outvalue my Scions handily. I put up the best fight that I could, but had neither the necessary removal to deal with their board, nor sufficiently-large Forwards to win combat trades.

Round 2 vs Water/Lightning Crystals ft. Light Yuna:

Another value engine deck that honestly is less of a Crystal deck (despite running some number of Crystal payoffs) and more of a Water/Lightning Yuna deck. They flooded the board with inexpensive Forwards that kept refilling their hand so that they weren't even drastically far behind on resources, and then adding in to the mix Yuna's ability to dull or freeze my field or otherwise prevent me from utilizing my removal in any meaningful capacity, and there was precious little I could do.

Round 3 vs Fire/Water Monsters:

My deck has precious few ways to handle Monsters, and with Fire came my opponent's ability to utilize Clive and Ifrit. Taken together, and once again there wasn't a ton I could really do to handle what was being thrown at me.

Round 4 vs Black Mages:

The one game that I won today, my Scions were able to build a board presence that ultimately overcame the extensive removal abilities that the Black Mages have access to. I also realized on the fly a nice bit of strategy I was able to make use of for the final point of damage. When I swung in with Thancred, my opponent used Black Waltz 1 to discard one of the other Black Waltzes, dealing a tremendous 11k damage to Thancred. However, when he was sent to the Break Zone, I was able to use his auto-ability to then bring an Irvine from my Break Zone back into play. Devouring two characters from their Break Zone, Irvine picked up Haste and went in for the final point.

Round 5 vs Flan/Monster Control:

Remember what I said just above, under the heading for Round 3, how my deck has a difficult time coping with Monsters? Combine that with a 1-drop Mira forward who can make Monsters unbreakable even if they do become Forwards (which I typically have a much easier time removing) and a 2-drop Zombie that can recur the Mira after she's used for her effect, and you get a recipe for a game that was almost as frustrating as it was fun to play, as I was wracking my brain to figure out the solution to the puzzle that was being set before me.

Ultimately, though, I wasn't able to cinch it, and solidified my 1-4 position. Out of 24 participants at the event, I came in 21st. I'm genuinely happy with my performance, however, and had a tremendous time playing.

I do, unfortunately, need to face the fact that my Scions deck is still a solid (and, more importantly, really fun) deck, it is however not a good deck for the game's current meta, based on how only one of today's match-ups really felt particularly favorable to me. Knights outvalue me, doing what I want to do, but better. Yuna Swarms can lock me out of playing entirely by taxing my removal and keeping my board tapped down. Then against Monsters, I simply don't have any reasonable outs for dealing with Monsters in Mono-Lightning. Are there other decks in the meta that I might have better odds against? Sure, that's a possibility. I did well against the Black Mages, for instance. But it doesn't feel terribly much like my list is likely to have a good time in the game's current environment.

I'll have to see what I can do about that. Maybe I invest in shifting to a "proper" Water/Lightning Scions list. Maybe I pick up a different list entirely - I do have a set of Yunas myself, and can put together something with her and Vikings, though my not (currently) owning a copy of LB Tidus does inherently hinder any Water deck I try to build. Regardless, I have a couple of weeks until the next major competitive event that I will be aiming to attend, so I can work on my plan, even if my work schedule might prevent me from fully testing whatever I come up with.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - May 16th, 2025

 After what feels like significantly more than the month or so that it's been since last I had cards to play and games to talk about, I finally made it out for Commander night once again.

And what's more, it was the Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Party! ... Which would've meant a lot more if not for the fact that half of the rules for the Commander Party were MIA, preventing us from using them for most of the night. Still.

Tonight was an unusual night, on top of that. Almost all of my games wound up being 1v1, with only one game having a third player. I played my Valgavoth, Saheeli, Krenko, and Fourteenth Doctor/Rose Noble decks throughout the night, and my opponent for almost every game was running an Azlask deck, a moderately different Eldrazi deck than what I'm used to seeing and expecting.

And to be slightly impolite about it, I basically wiped the floor with them in almost every game. The only game I lost was the one in which I played Saheeli. Partially, but not entirely, that can be chalked up to the incredibly poor draws that I was having that game, though a potentially-ill-timed Blasphemous Act did few favors for me, as my opponent managed to recover relatively swiftly, building back an even more imposing board state than the one I had wiped away.

The one game with a third player, I ran my Krenko, and we were joined by a player I have gone up against in the past, who was running a monoblue deck with Brinelin the Moon Kraken and the Ghost of Ramirez de Pietro as Partner Commanders. Again, I ran away handily with the game, having gotten a turn 2 Impact Tremors, which later turned into almost all of my damage for the game with Krenko and Siege-Gang Commander fueling significant swings. On the game's final turn, I drew General Kreat, the Boltbringer and was able to throw a quick and hefty 24 damage into each opponent. With an active Quest for the Goblin Lord and a Goblin Wardriver in play, my massive board of Goblin Tokens overran their remaining life totals.

That said, despite primarily playing 1v1 games tonight - not how I like to play Commander, given the nature of the format - and my unrelated frustrations with traffic on my way home, tonight was an absolute blast, and provided some much-needed time slinging cardboard around. I'm looking forward to the rest of my week.

This Sunday, provided all goes as intended, I will be likely participating in a Local Qualifier event for the FFTCG, which will likely be a ton of fun. Monday may see my normal FFTCG locals night, though that remains to be seen. I'm hopeful, at the least.

WEEK OFF

 I'm taking this week off for a small vacation. I'm heading out of state to go visit some friends of mine, and thus, obviously, won't be around for any of my typical TCG nights this week.

The only day I might make it to is if FFTCG fires on Wednesday, May 7th, and that's assuming both that enough people are willing to show for that, and that I'm home in time to make it out to that shop.

So most likely, there won't be any blog posts this week. Apologies, especially after how slow my last week off was in terms of games. See you again in about two weeks!