Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 30th, 2025

 I wasn't originally planning to go out to the other card shop today for Locals.

But, honestly, I was a little disappointed with Monday not happening, and wanted to play a few games of FFTCG before the end of my vacation sees me return to work.

Plus, having spent the past few weeks playing nothing but Dragoons in preparation for Sunday's LQ, I kind of really wanted to get in a night playing something else. In particular, I wanted to play my Scions, a deck I've not touched ever since pulling Dragoons back out.

A total of five of us showed tonight, and I played games against three of the others in friendly Best of 3 sets.

Games vs Luso

The same Luso list that's been giving my Dragoons fits for weeks, which I have a devil of a time working around due to the nature of the removal available to that deck.

Scions... Didn't have that issue. Among other things, having as many EX Burst Odins in my list as I do meant that attacking into me often saw me remove one of their Forwards. The Alisaie-return-Y'shtola plays were also sufficient to remove the Luso on their own, meaning I could cut down on their ability to snowball, and only have one or two Forwards to deal with after the fact. Being able to keep Luso under control so relatively easily turned this game from an absolute headache for my Dragoons into a comparatively easy game for Scions.

After playing the usual Luso player and winning our set, another player asked if they could borrow the deck to play a game or two, just to try it out and see what they could do against the matchup.

Burst Luck was on my side, as a prominent early play saw them drop in Wind/Fire Zidane to strip away a couple of my backups and deal me some damage, which hit an Odin to take out the Zidane. They had been banking on me having to burn some number of resources to take Zidane off the field, stripping my hand and leaving me relatively easy pickings.

But, again. Burst Luck.

Games vs Mono-Earth

Having not seen Mono-Earth in a little bit, but knowing this deck is quite a bit for me, I tried to make sure I didn't overextend so that I could regularly have some removal available for dealing with the powerhouse Forwards that this deck can quickly drop in.

Ultimately, I did lose the set. I took one game, however, managing to hit the removal I needed to keep the worst of their Forwards down. I was also proud of Game 3, as although I did lose that, I was able to scrape together a small defense that kept me alive for a couple of turns longer than I expected. The impressive thing about that was the resource deficit I was working under - I spent several turns trying to build up some backups as I was finally drawing them, while my opponent had a full set of 5 and was holding so many cards in-hand that they had to discard each turn. Despite that, I was able to keep myself alive for a couple of turns, in part because they were worried about hitting my Odins on the damage.

After our set, the Luso player asked to borrow the Mono-Earth deck for a set. A relatively quick set where I lost both of the games we played, but a set nonetheless. While the Luso player was a little more aggressive in their style than the Mono-Earth deck's usual pilot, ultimately it still broke down in much the same way - Mono-Earth pulled together so many resources that it just overwhelmed me.

Games vs Knights

The games I kept the fewest notes on, mostly because the set was pretty short.

Knights did Knights things to me. The main thing that kept the games from going too quickly is that the Knights player is the same one from last Wednesday, another player that's about as new to the game as I am. There were a few play mistakes on their end, but Knights being able to go wide as quickly as they do meant my relatively potent single-target removal wasn't as useful as it could have been, and I haven't added in any particularly decent board wipes to the list (such as Ixion). This in addition to Knights being able to pop my Forwards with relative ease, to keep me away from the "critical mass" that Scions wants to be at for Thancred and Y'shtola's on-entry auto-abilities, meant that things stayed in their favor.

And in one of our games, a Cid Randell coming into play to completely stop my on-entry abilities effectively shut down any hope I had of trying to build a comeback.

Conclusion

I've missed my Scions, to be honest. I do genuinely think that focusing on my Dragoons for the past two weeks to get in as much practice as I could for the LQ on Sunday was the correct choice, don't get me wrong.

And having set the Scions aside to instead bring the Dragoons back out was also, I think, the correct choice. The two decks have a lot of similarities between their game plans, and I do think that playing Dragoons as much as I have has managed to make me at least a little better at playing my current Mono-Lightning incarnation of the Scions list.

But, that said, the similarities between the two lists and the relatively worse performance that I've had with my Scions on the whole versus what I've accomplished playing Dragoons has made me want to make some significant changes to the Scions list, to move it away from its current midrange-tempo plan. Doing so will require making an order for the many cards I'm currently missing, but such is the nature of TCGs.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 28th, 2025 - CANCELLED

After yesterday's LQ, I presume most people were a little burned out and didn't feel up to coming out for a low-stakes locals.

Of course, that's just my guess. I knew from the local Discord that nobody planned to make their way out to the card shop tonight. I still went out, just in the off-chance that an interested new player may have shown up, but I was the only one to show.

Ah well. Like I said, I expected it. This week, I go back to my regular work schedule, so I won't have any more locals to talk about until at least next Thursday, the 7th of August, and then only if I play Pokémon that night. More likely, it won't be until the 8th, when I attend Commander Night, that I have any more locals to talk about.

Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier - July 27th, 2025

 This was it. The "big day", the Local Qualifier that's seen me playing the same deck for the past two weeks, practicing as much as I possibly could to get myself prepared for this event.

My goal: 2-X. I've went 1-4 at the last two LQs I've attended, I just wanted desperately to do better than that. I just needed to show myself, if nobody else, that I'm at least halfway decent at this game.

I went 3-2 and finished in 13th place. And while it's a bit disappointing that I didn't hit the Top 8 at that point, I do not care nearly enough to be heartbroken. Going 3-2, breaching the Top 16 already surpassed my goals and hopes for today's event, and I am over the moon with myself.

Obviously being a big, official tournament, every game today was played with the same deck: My Dragoons, which I've been playing non-stop for the past few weeks at every local I've attended.

Round 1 vs Crystals - Win

I felt a little bad going into this game, because this is the same Crystals player that I play against at locals near-constantly, and while that meant we both kind of had each other's number, I was confident that I would be able to take this game fairly easily despite their significant experience advantage with the FFTCG over me.

And when I got a nearly-ideal opening hand, dropping Alus on turn 1 and getting enough resources from those extra card draws that I could play an aggressive game while not overextending into the Crystal's relatively light board state, I was proven right.

Round 2 vs Water/Lightning Cat VIII - Win

This game was tense, with my opponent having solid removal options and having plenty of outs against me. An EX Burst Odin during my second-to-last turn prevented me from taking the final point of damage then and there - after I had popped my Alus to dull their only blocker to clear the way for what could have been lethal damage.

Fortunately, a misplay during their turn gave me the space I needed to take the win regardless - They swung into me, putting me at 3 Damage, activating the power buff for Dragoons granted by Theatrhythm Aranea, meaning their Edea wasn't able to take out my previously-8000-power Dragoon. This gave me the extra body necessary to brute force my way through their blockers on my turn.

Round 3 vs Mono-Fire Luso - Loss

This was my first loss of the day, and it was against the janky, fun gamble that is the same Mono-Fire Luso that's been giving me fits at Locals. My opening turn saw me drop Alus and another Backup. They opened with Luso in play and flipped into Feolthanos. I ran myself clear of resources to play LB Sephiroth, hoping to use him to get rid of the Luso and cut my opponent's main engine off at the source.

Unfortunately, they had the Amaterasu to prevent Sephiroth from doing his thing, leaving me to play a serious game of catch-up.

Even more unfortunately, as we discussed after the game was finished, while we both effectively got to "draw" 3 cards a turn, they got to free-play their third draw, and with the raw power of their high-cost characters, that put the math heavily in their favor.

C'est la vie.

Round 4 vs Dragoons - Loss

Mirror Match! I was so hyped for this game - I had been hoping for it to happen ever since Round 1 when we were seated next to each other in neighboring games, and I saw that they were playing Dragoons. At the last LQ I attended, they were the player who brought Dragoons and made it into Top 8, which is what inspired me to pull my Dragoons back out and begin playing them again. Players in the games on either side of us were simultaneously disgusted with the raw stupidity of seeing two Dragoon decks playing against each other, and hyped about the raw stupidity of seeing two Dragoon decks playing against each other.

And for added fun and profit, the individual running the event for us today told us both - jokingly I must clarify - that he "hated [us] both" because we wound up being this round's random deck check. Having to match up so many cards all named Dragoon with the appropriate serial numbers was definitely an experience.

Regardless, this game wound up being an absolute blast to play out. Shockingly, we had incredibly similar board states throughout the game, though I was able to play just a touch more aggressively. Unfortunately, I made a significant misplay by miscalculating some combat math, and played one of my Cherry Blossom Freyas onto the table without enough juice in-hand to then activate Cherry Blossom. This gave my opponent the space they needed to play their Freya and Cherry Blossom against me instead, wiping out my board. This swung the momentum of the game heavily in their favor, and while I did manage to play another Freya and successfully activate Cherry Blossom, this was met with them Cherry Blossoming me back in response, theirs resolving first, and leaving them with a Forward in play, keeping the momentum ultimately in their favor as they proceeded to pummel me to 7 damage.

Round 5 vs Mono-Fire - Win

My final game, and if I won, there was a chance I would make Top 8. Among everything else, this left me feeling a ton of pressure to take the win in this game.

As opposed to the Luso deck that I played in Round 3, this was a "real" Mono-Fire list, with removal galore and powerful effects to recur their characters - oftentimes triggering even more removal with these characters' on-entry effects - rather than the Luso-style "Gamble for overwhelming firepower" from Round 3.

And as I've noted, I did win. I fought through the removal, through the massive bodies of Ifrit (XVI) and The Demon and Jecht, and managed to secure the win by using Alus to dull their LB Vincent and swing some Barbara-powered Dragoons to secure the last couple of points of damage.

My opponent even gave me some cool trinkets that they 3D Printed, afterwards - an FF14-themed Deck Box, and a keychain with the FF14 Dragoon Job Icon - because that's evidently just a thing that they do at events like this. That was, again, super cool of them.

Conclusion

While I am a little bummed that a crazy tense fifth game victory putting me at 3-2 wasn't quite enough to secure Top 8 (some poor tiebreakers held me down, unfortunately), the fact that I still went 3-2 and got into the Top 16 was amazing for me. I'm absolutely thrilled to have done so well, and I'm going to ride that high for the rest of the day at a minimum.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - July 25th, 2025

 I will be completely honest from the outset here: I do not remember almost any other deck tonight aside from the four that I played, and in the order that I played those four. The one exception is that one of my opponents for tonight played a Thrasios/Tymna deck all night.

It was... an experience. They continually insisted it was just "a slow, grindy midrange deck" but consistently played cEDH staple after cEDH staple and did absurd shenanigans. They were hated out in almost every game that we played, but the fact remains that it was the first time I got to come across the "Oh, sure, it's those Commanders, but it's not that kind of deck!" experience.

Dear reader, it was absolutely that kind of deck. But I digress.

Cloud, Planet's Champion

For the first game of the night, I played my Cloud deck. I've had this finished for a few weeks, but this was the first time I've been able to actually play it since then.

It went swimmingly for me. Unironically, it did almost everything I could have asked to have it do. I even managed to play the copy of Buster Sword I picked up at last week's anime local anime convention, and it was genuinely the reason that I was able to win this game.

The final opponent standing was a mono-green stompy style of list, and they swung absolutely massive creatures at me. I barely managed to survive that turn, I was left with exactly one life point. I drew Buster Sword, played it and strapped it to Cloud, then thanks in part to my Mask of Memory, I was able to draw 3 cards off of the first attack, which hit for 10. I then played Zack Fair for free with the second half of the Buster Sword trigger. Before the second instance of damage from Cloud, I used Zack's effect to put his +1/+1 counter onto Cloud so that the second attack dealt 11 damage, putting my opponent at 21 Commander Damage and winning me the game by the absolute skin of my teeth.

Baral, Chief of Compliance

This game was a lot. It effectively wound up as a cEDH game between the four players, and while it was mostly a fine game, the very final turn of the game turned into an absolute mess. The Thrasios/Tymna player was a major part of that.

I made moves to combo off and win the game, and the stack turned to an absolute mess, in part because the Thrasios/Tymna player utterly ignored the concept of Priority, and tried to do numerous things in rapid succession, though ultimately we did manage to untangle the mess that the stack had become.

And then I didn't even win off of my intended effect, I won because the Thrasios/Tymna player was at a low enough life total that they were taken out by their own The One Ring on their upkeep, while the other two players had scooped by that point.

Krenko, Mob Boss

After the insanity of how the last game turned out, I wanted a game where I could just turn off my brain and slam a few creatures into play and turn them sideways.

I did, in fact, have a game that required zero brain power. This is because Krenko was destroyed multiple times, and the handful of other creatures I was able to play were taken down by a board wipe.

So I basically didn't really get to play this game, is what I'm getting at. It was a lot of hilarity hearing the cEDH player, who had no other decks with them, say that Krenko is "scary" and that was why they were hating my Goblins down so much.

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed

At this point, the Thrasios/Tymna player had to leave, so this was a three-person game to close out the night. One opponent was taken down incredibly quickly, and then went up front to poke around at the store's goods and singles for like, twenty minutes before myself and the other player finally finished our game.

I wound up losing this one, but it was the sort of game that I had been hoping to get in with Krenko, where I had a relatively simple plan and didn't need to do a ton of thinking to make it work.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 23rd, 2025

 Once again at the second shop I attend, for the last chance to get some practice in before the Local Qualifier on this upcoming Sunday.

As has been the case for the past two weeks, every game I played today was done using my Dragoons list. As is also usual for this second shop, there was no formal "tournament" structure, it was a series of friendlies against the others who showed up, and I got in three Best of 3 sets against three different players.

Games vs Knights - Loss

My first opponent was an individual who I've only ever gotten to play against at one other locals, several months ago. They wanted to get at least one day of practice in with their Knights list, which they decided to add Clive and Ifrit (XVI) to in advance of Sunday's LQ.

With my consent, they received coaching for the two games we played by another, more veteran player who was also present.

The first game was a little hard for me thanks in part to an early Lasswell. Despite the Knight who kept my backups locked down for much of the game, I did manage to fight back and claw together a board position. However, due to an error on what wound up my final turn I left myself with only a 6-drop Aranea left as a blocker who was subsequently tapped down by a Serjes from the LB deck.

Our second game was a close affair, where fairly early on they took a big, 4-damage turn against me. I was able to play a small mountain of removal and built up a decent board state with a solid suite of blockers. However, the next turn they were able to hard-cast an Ifrit (XVI) and had a second copy of the Eikon in hand, allowing them to take out my two active Blockers and safely swing in to blow away my third and final Forward. Ultimately, that turn's the one that spelled the end for me, as I wasn't able to mount any comeback afterwards due to the resources that I had to spend just prior to the Ifrit's entrance to the field.

Games vs Mono-Fire Luso  - Win

The same Luso list that has been a frustrating blast to play against for the past few locals, this wound up being a tight set between us.

In games 1 and 3, I was able to mount a solid defense off of the 2-drop Dragoon that gets bigger for each other Dragoon I control, who was consistently in the range of 11k+ power thanks to having set up a suite of backups. In game 2, the only game of the set that I lost, I had a more difficult time setting up my position and Luso had much better luck with their triggers.

Games vs Refia - Loss

The same Refia list I've been unable to take a clean game against, with the only victory I've gotten having been last week in the game where they admitted they played their final turn in a way they never would have done so in a serious event.

At least until tonight, when I finally got one of the three games against them.

Game 1 went about the way that my games against this player and list have for the past couple of weeks, with me getting some early aggression in, but quickly losing ground once WoL4 and Refia hit the table.

Game 2 I took a clean win. They had some odd draws, as they commented during the course of the game, enabling me to play a little conservatively. I hit them to 2 damage, and bided my time until I was able to take a big, lethal turn knocking them from 2 to 7 by playing enough removal pieces to remove their blockers, then following with Barbara to give everything I had Haste to swing in. Luck with the EX Bursts meant I didn't run afoul of removal or extra card draw that would have enabled them to play a 6-cost Leviathan that they had in hand, and I took the win.

Then game 3 was "back to form", with me getting somewhat unfortunate draws and not being able to build up my backups, leaving me a little lacking in resources.

All three games, I did see a turn 1 Alus, which meant that all three of these games, I was "able to play" since I had the extra card draw each turn.

Conclusion

Well, this was the last bit of practice I'm going to be able to have before Sunday's LQ. I'm feeling at least a little confident since I was able to at least take one game against the Refia deck I've been having difficulties with.

The last two LQs I attended, I went 1-4. My only real goal for Sunday's LQ is to end with a better record than that. If I go 2-3, I'll consider that a personal victory. Obviously, we'll see how the chips fall in about four days.

In the interim, tomorrow is a Pokémon League Challenge at my usual card shop, Friday will be Commander night at the same, and Saturday will be a day to rest and relax.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 21st, 2025

 Technically today was a day outside of my normal schedule. I'm actually on vacation from work - I haven't traveled, but I made plans for things to do with an extra week off from work.

That said, I journeyed out to my favorite card shop to play in tonight's locals. We're ever-closer to the next Local Qualifier, and I still want more practice with my Dragoons, so that was the only deck I played today.

One other individual showed up early, the only other player who had shown for locals one week ago, and so we had a quick friendly game against one another.

Friendly Game vs Sky Pirates

I played heavily aggro in this game, due to the resources I wound up drawing - or, in the case of Alus, not drawing. I quickly took several points of damage against the Sky Pirates, but when they managed to fill their board in the way that Sky Pirates do, and then dropped their copy of Yuna to keep my backups frozen and my Forwards mostly tapped down, there wasn't much I could do.

I did play LB Cloud to take the Yuna out, but on an EX Burst they hit Tyro, allowing them to search out a Lulu Forward that brought Yuna back from the break zone. Unable to remove Yuna a second time, I was locked down, and they took the victory.

After this game, the other players showed up, for a total of six players, counting myself, and our proper "tournament" started.

Game 1 vs Refia

The same Refia player as this past Wednesday at the other card shop, this played out fairly similarly to most of our games that night.

We both had somewhat mediocre turn 1s, with them overpaying to play Tyro, and myself playing LB Lunafreya to dig for Alus. I did hit the Alus though, and slammed him to the board immediately, which fueled another aggressive game for me. I forgot that the magic number for the Warriors of Light is 3 - that is, at 3 damage they gain access to so many different, additional effects, many of them searches - and knocked them to 4 damage pretty early on.

This, dear reader, was a mistake.

Turning on their search effects, such as Faris, was like opening a flood gate, and they used this opportunity to take the game over fairly handily. I did manage to get them to 6 damage, but a Shinryu hitting the field knocked out a chunk of my board, and Refia gave them piece-by-piece removal for the rest of it. I was unable to find and stick any removal, which did me no favors overall.

Game 2 vs Ice/Lightning

This game was an absolute nail-biter for me. I went first and a decent opening, including turn 1 Alus, but they had an incredibly potent opening with Skyserpent General Rughadjeen and the Legend-rarity Sephiroth from Tears of the Planet. Swinging with the General gave Sephiroth both Haste and Brave, and thanks to Sephiroth, their attacks each stripped cards from my hand. I eventually managed to remove their General and Sephiroth by trading with LB Kain, buffed by the Theatrhythm Aranea as I was quickly brought past her 3-damage threshold.

Eventually, I got a Freya in play, and I willingly sacrificed my Alus by using it to dull their Seifer, who would have otherwise broken Freya when swinging. This bought the time I needed to get the resources to wipe their board with Cherry Blossom for the first time. Several more Cherry Blossoms later, I was able to eventually turn the game back into my favor, with LB Cloud clearing out their last blocker on what wound up the final turn of the game. I was put quickly at 6 damage, so I was sweating bullets hoping I could work around their board.

Game 3 vs Mono-Fire Luso

The same Luso list as from last Wednesday, they were able to turn 1 play Meeth to grab Luso, and then Luso flipped Ifrit (XVI) in that first combat step. This spelled a quick end to the game, frankly, and any hope I had that I could play around the massive Eikon was dashed when they flipped over WoL4 on turn 2.

And much like Wednesday, I couldn't even be angry. That deck is so much fun to see in action.

That said, on what ended up my final turn, I found myself in the same position I did several times during Wednesday's locals, where I was one card-in-hand away from being able to wipe their board. I was able to get Cherry Blossom Freya in play, but with a total of 3 Dragoons in play, counting Freya, I needed to be able to use Cherry Blossom twice to clear their board. I had two additional Freyas in-hand, I was just short one CP - or one card-in-hand - to be able to actually use the Cherry Blossom.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 16th, 2025

 I didn't originally plan to make my way out to the other card shop to play FFTCG tonight, but in light of the fact that we're not far off from a Local Qualifier, and that I need more practice with my Dragoons list, I decided to head out.

Myself and the individual who I played against on Monday both attended Locals tonight, and as this is the shop where we never get "formalized" events for our weekly locals, we both agreed that neither of us wanted to play the other after our dozen games just two days ago. Fortunately, there were two others who attended against whom we could play.

For every game I played tonight, in light of my desire to get more practice in, I played my Dragoons deck.

Games vs Refia/Warriors of Light

We got quite a number of games in against one another. I lost track exactly of how many, though it was at least three or four.

Our first game, I was able to see Alus pretty quickly to help me draw more cards and generate more resources that way. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep up with the Warriors of Light in board presence and was unable to capitalize on those extra cards I was drawing, in part because I really didn't get many other backups. I did get one Cherry Blossom off, which popped a Refia but was unfortunately unable to finish off their WoL4, and that bit of work was immediately negated when they quickly brought the Refia back. Refia's return was effectively my death knell.

In our second, I didn't see Alus at all until my very final turn of the game, so it was a struggle to build resources and keep up with the Warriors of Light at all. In retrospect, I might have been slightly better off if I hadn't played the Alus that turn, and focused on trying to play a Freya to destroy their board, but as I think about it I don't know whether or not I had the resources available to me to make the attempt.

I did manage to take one game against them, however, where I never saw any of my Freyas leaving me to play incredibly aggressively. After the game, my opponent did mention that the way that their final turn played out they never would have done in a tournament setting, but in the more casual setting of this local they wanted to see if they could manage to take me from 2 to 7. I had Alus to stop their final Forward from swinging, and then I was able to get a 6-drop Aranea to remove their only blocker and take the final point of damage.

Games vs Knights

Playing against the other person who made it to Locals tonight, I lost almost every game that we played. Almost every game, they managed to get an incredibly strong start, managing to get the Ramza-for-Curilla play on turn 1 or 2 in almost if not every game that we played.

The only game I won, they revealed after the game that they started with a Ramza and all three of their Curillas in hand, so there was no way that they could have tucked that hand away with a mulligan since there was no guarantee that they could have gotten any of those back if they had. This left them with minimal gas, so when I managed to punch a couple of holes into their position, they didn't have the gas to come back around, leaving me to be able to take the win.

Game vs Fire Luso

The same opponent as the one playing Knights, who wanted to play a different, more fun-to-them deck for a game or two, this Luso was one I'd never seen before. A funny "gamble" type deck, where the Luso drops a random Fire Forward into play after shuffling their deck and revealing the top card, I lost pretty handily to them, but we were having so much fun with the randomness of it, I didn't even want to be mad, and was incredibly glad that I couldn't be mad.

Conclusion

So I need more practice with my Dragoons list. After the half-dozen games I played against Crystals on Monday, I was overestimating myself a little and wasn't expecting how badly the Refia and Knights games would go for me. I need a lot more practice in those matchups, and possibly some of the other meta decks such as Cat IV Yuna, before I take the deck with me to the next LQ.

Still, if I can't get practice against those chunks of the current metagame, I could still use more practice in general to figure out exactly what my play lines are and how to handle not getting one resource (Freya, say) or the other (Alus, which is much more punishing).

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 14th, 2025

 After yesterday saw me not playing any TCGs - I, still effectively jetlagged after my long, exhausting day on Saturday going to a Pokémon Professor Conference, simply helped to run the normal League day and did not so much as touch a single piece of cardboard - today I was one of only two people to show up to FFTCG Locals today.

The two of us played a good dozen games in total, so it was definitely a lot of games played, and good practice for the both of us with our decks. I played two different decks, and my opponent played only their Crystals list.

Dragoons vs Crystals

The first six games we played, I pulled out my Dragoons list, as I haven't played it in some time, and it's the deck I intend to bring with me to the next Local Championship Qualifier in my area. My opponent, for every game we played tonight, used their Crystals, and in fact is the person who heavily informed my own Crystals list.

I took both "sets" 2-1, in multiple games having two Cherry Blossom Freyas ripped away from me by W/F Zidane, but I was able to work around losing so many copies of my primary board wipe. Thanks to the amount of removal that the Dragoons have access to, I was able to take wins. I did once manage to use my third and final Cherry Blossom Freya to good effect by playing it, having it broken on-board, and bringing it back with LB Kain to then activate the Cherry Blossom with a copy of W/L Freya.

As I said, I took both sets 2-1, or effectively I went 4-2 against the Crystals with my Dragoons.

Crystals vs Crystals

Now mostly a mirror match, because I wanted to play my own Crystals for some practice, and I lost these sets, 1-2. Or, in effect, I went 2-4 over the 6 games.

The very first game in our set, I took a quick win after using Amat to stop a Salamander from wiping my board, eating a ton of my opponent's resources thanks to them paying through a Cecil Tax in their attempt to use Salamander's effect. The second and third games were both pretty back and forth in comparison, with game 2 seeing me basically playing as a bad Wind/Fire Aggro list, and game 3 my Crystal Deck played the most Crystal it's ever been before. However, in that third game, I was playing a game without any backups, so when my opponent finally managed to break my board down, I was left bereft of resources and couldn't keep up.

Moving into our second set, I had a significantly better set of backups, giving me much more ample resources. My opponent did manage to use Onion Knight to grab a Lightning DFF Emperor that would make my action abilities - such as Vaan or Cyan's board wipes - more expensive. I did manage to get rid of it, and when my opponent put the search trigger onto the stack, I wiped their board in anticipation of a second copy of that Emperor. When they instead dropped SOPFFO Emperor to get more Crystals and set themselves up with a board wipe I couldn't prevent, it looked a little bad for me. Fortunately, in a reversal of our previous game, I had a collection of more, better backups so I could power through the Emperor and took the first game of the second set.

The next game saw us both flush with backups and resources, but their backups were markedly better - they had their Spiritus, where I did not, giving them a potent buff on the table that made a lot of removal math significantly better for them.

Our absolute final game of the night, opened with the two of us making a bizarre volley of board wipes against one another, which hurt me drastically more than it hurt them. We were both, however, left in a position where we had to regroup and rebuild our resources, and ultimately they took the game because they were better able to build their position back up thanks to having more means to generate resources and draw cards, since they operate in many more colors than my Wind/Fire list.

That final game also saw me make an early, near-dream opening where I used General Leo to play Firion and break one of my opponent's Forwards, generating me a Crystal. I then played Sol, who I then used to play Vaan for another Crystal, with a second Vaan in hand. That felt good, and was what set me up for my side of our early board wipe volleys.

Day Off - July 11th, 2025

While tonight would normally be Commander night at my usual card shop, I have plans early tomorrow morning with two other Pokémon Professors from my area to carpool out to a Professor Conference. And by early, I mean "we plan to leave around 5am". Hoping to get a good night's rest ahead of that means needing to go to bed far too early to make it to Commander. A shame, I have a new deck I was hoping to try out.

In two weeks, when I can next make it to Commander night, I suppose.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - July 2nd, 2025

It was a little unplanned that I decided to head out to the other card shop for FFTCG tonight, but I decided that I wanted to get a little bit of practice with my Golbez deck, so out I went.

A total of four of us showed up for tonight's locals and while we didn't set up any sort of formal "tournament" structure, we did wind up with Best of 3 games going on. I also only got games in with two of the three other players.

Games vs Ice-Lightning Crystals

This wound up being two control decks playing against one another, and as a consequence it was a pretty long set.

The first game was especially long and drawn out, and I didn't see a Yuna until the very end of the game. When she did finally show up, I was able to shut down my opponent's entire board and swing in to take my opponent from 0 to 7 in one turn.

Our second game, I was handily shut down by an early Gentiana from my opponent, shutting down all of my dull Forwards' abilities. Combined with Al-Cid keeping Yuna frozen almost all game, and their ability to dull Golbez during my Main Phase before I could get the combat auto-ability, I was effectively locked out of my entire game plan. Not helping matters was my attempt to take Gentiana using Golbez, eating almost my entire board only to immediately lose the Gentiana to their Emperor breaking her.

The third and final game, I was slowed down by a Cid Randell disabling my Vikings' auto-abilities, meaning I was slowed down from a critical mass of Forwards since I couldn't constantly refill my hand with each Viking entering the field. I did, however, manage to snowball my way to victory regardless, as I was able to get Yuna and Golbez both in play, along with enough protection to keep my opponent from locking me down the way they had in Game 2. Yuna kept their board under control until I reached the necessary mass of Forwards for my winning turn.

Games vs Mono-Earth

Only two games to this set, because I lost both of them.

Each game, I built a decent board position up on my first handful of turns, but was met with a board wipe that I couldn't sufficiently tax away which left me down on resources without much recourse while my opponent was able to stockpile much more ample resources, comparatively speaking. Likewise, I couldn't find sufficient protection to keep Yuna safe from a couple of instances of targeted removal, though even if I had I doubt it would've had drastically much influence on the games.

That said, I did finally see my Kalmia during Game 2, and she accomplished the exact role she was added to the deck to accomplish: She kept my board safe from the board wipes of a Shinryu on my opponent's side, preventing me from scooping in the face of a mass power-reduction effect. I still lost, obviously, but getting to see Kalmia actually do what she was added to the deck to do was at least a small victory of sorts for me.