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.
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