Final Fantasy TCG Locals - August, 25th 2025

The last few pieces I had ordered for my Scions arrived late last week, and a card that one of the other local players owed me finally made its way to me tonight.

After yesterday's Local Qualifier I was looking forward to getting some practice with my newly revamped Scions deck. Only one other player showed up tonight, but that was sufficient. We played seven games spread across three of their decks, while I played my Scions nonstop trying to learn more about the ins and outs of playing the list.

Games vs Sky Pirates

Three games against the Sky Pirates, all of which I ended up losing.

Game 1, I wildly overextended over the first few turns, and when they wiped the board, I was struggling hard, trying to rebuild resources while hoping to just survive a few rounds of damage, maybe hit some EX Bursts to clear away a few pieces of their board. I did not survive, nor did I hit the EX Bursts to clear away their board.

Game 2 went markedly better, with me holding back resources a little bit so I was prepared in the event of a board wipe. Unfortunately, they managed to eventually present a wall I couldn't get around thanks to the new Ashe from Gunslinger that massively buffed their board, and when they removed my Estinien, I was left without my only means of punching through that wall.

Game 3 was going moderately alright until I flubbed the math on a turn where I tried to wipe the board with Y'shtola and LB Zack. After that, I was basically tapped out on resources and couldn't come back.

After this, they put away the Sky Pirates and pulled out a different list.

Games vs Cadets

My notes for these games were a bit sparse.

Game 1 and Game 3, I was able to play entirely too aggressively for them to keep up and I ran roughshod over them.

Game 2, however, they were able to EX Burst into enough answers to keep me in check, and they were the one who ran me down.

Game vs Crystals

The only game we played with their Crystals deck, an early Wind/Fire Zidane stripped me of at least a half-dozen cards over the course of a few turns before I finally removed it. Hindsight, I should have played LB Cloud and dealt with it much sooner than I had, though I admit I was concerned about the prospect of Cloud eating an Amaterasu. Regardless.

Eventually, we found ourselves in a quasi-stalemate, and when they attempted to clear my board with Vaan, I wiped theirs in response with Y'shtola and her Pulse of Creation. This gave me some breathing room to start rebuilding, and I was the first to properly recover from the mutual board wipes.

Unfortunately, they eventually hit the new Bartz from Gunslinger and were able to quickly turn the game around by playing him, dropping a Faris to put some damage on my entire board, and then dropping Vinera Fennes to clear my already-damaged Forwards away. I tried to drop LB Sephiroth the next turn to get rid of Faris, which succeeded, but on their turn they were able to put enough damage on Sephiroth that swinging with Vinera cleared him away. I was out of potential Odin EX Bursts to have any hope of hanging on, so that was the end of the game for me.

Conclusion

There's still a lot of learning for me to do with this list, possibly several tweaks to make to it as well. For example, the Estinien that I ran in my Mono-Lightning build may need to make a return to my list as I found myself frequently running my hand completely empty, and that Estinien's ability to return Scions to my hand from the Break Zone could prove useful in correcting for that, giving me much needed resources. The potential downside, of course, being that Estinien's comparatively smaller body versus the Warp Estinien, meaning I can't rely on him to punch through walls like WoL4 or a decently-established Sky Pirates board, plus the lack of ability to Warp it into play and have it hit the field to swing twice means it doesn't necessarily have the same aggressive bite.

We'll see. Tonight was the first time playing this list in earnest, and there's plenty of time before the next time I'll be anywhere near a competitive event for me to get the list right.

Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier - August 24th, 2025

 Just a bit under a month since the last Local Qualifier that I attended, and this time I had...drastically less practice, as unlike July, I didn't have nearly 3 full weeks that I could grind locals like a madman.

I wound up playing my Dragoons today, as while that wasn't the list I wanted to use, it was the deck I was most well-practiced with. All of the cards I'd needed to order for the list I had actually wanted to play had failed to arrive in time for me to get any practice with that list in the few locals I could attend, so I opted to instead stick with the list I knew well enough from all of my practice in July, improved as it was by the addition of the new Freya and new backup Dragoon that came from Gunslinger.

I digress. It was a total of 27 players, with 5 rounds of Swiss before cutting to a Top 8. I went 3-2, just like I did at the previous LQ, but I had markedly better tiebreakers this go around, getting me into the Top 8! I was super stoked about that.

I was immediately knocked out in my Top 8 game, which was a little bit of a bummer, but even making Top 8 was already leagues better than I thought I would accomplish.

Round 1 vs Refia - Loss

First game of the day and it was not a great start for me. I had a decently aggressive start, including seeing Alus, but made the error of knocking them to damage 4, which activated so many of their triggers. They were able to fairly quickly turn the game around, and Refia's ability to tuck my Forwards meant that they were very able to get rid of my few blockers.

Not an auspicious start, but I was able to turn things around over the next few rounds.

Round 2 vs Cat VI - Win

This was an absolute blowout. They dropped a Locke, new Freya devoured him, and when they dropped The Demon to take out Freya and Kain, I used her Special to take the Demon down with them.

When I dropped a second copy of Freya, that was where they scooped, having nothing to protect them from my board.

Round 3 vs Earth/Water - Win

I unironically don't know exactly what archetype this deck was aside from being an Earth/Water list. The only backup that they saw was knocked to damage, meaning that they had nearly no resources to work with.

Once again, new Freya was an absolute house, taking out a "lightning rod" Auron and Ra-la, and when they managed to drop a Cecil to prevent ability damage followed by another Ra-la, it took me a few minutes, but I was able to get rid of the Cecil with the 5-drop power loss Dragoon.

Freya took Ra-la out once more, and that was where they scooped.

Round 4 vs Earth/Water Chark - Win

The first game I never saw any copies of Alus, which slowed my game down dramatically. This game had me sweating bullets as I had to be cautious not to overextend, but I was able to punch through enough damage that when I got to my second-to-last turn, dropping LB Sephiroth spelled the end of the game. They were at 6 damage, Sephiroth had destroyed their second copy of Chaos, and when they had nothing to remove the fabled War Hero, that was where they scooped up their cards as the attack trigger would remove any blockers they could have dropped.

Round 5 vs Dragoons - Loss

They saw their Alus early.

I did not. This gave them the immediate resource advantage as they were effectively drawing an additional card a turn that I was not.

The true kicker was my making a drastic misplay on my last turn of the game. I finally drew my Alus, and tunnel vision kicked in, prompting me to play the Prince. Had I been thinking things through more thoroughly, I would have skipped out on Alus and just gone for a higher mass of Dragoons so that I could wipe their field with my Cherry Blossom Freya and hopefully scrape back a win.

However, the resources I dumped into Alus left me unable to take their board out.

This was where we cut to the Top 8. As I said above, I barely made it - finishing Swiss in 8th place - and we took a break for the judge to deck check. They were unamused about having to deck check not one, not two, but three Dragoon lists, as myself and both other Dragoons players at the LQ today had made top cut.

Top 8 Game vs Knights - Loss

We had over an hour for our Top 8 games, playing Best of 3 rounds.

The Knights ran me over, twice, in less than 15 minutes. Total.

There was, plainly speaking, nothing I could do against them. Both games, they got turn 1 Gawain into Ramza/Curilla. In game 1, they dropped Ramza/Curilla into play on turn 2. In game 2, since I went first and they had an extra card in hand, they were able to drop the duo on turn 1. Both times, Curilla hit Charlotte and another Knight to fill their board.

I couldn't even pretend to build up a board state in time to deal with the pressure put on me by that play in either game.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - August 22nd, 2025

Commander Night! Unfortunately I didn't get to go out and play FFTCG last Wednesday due to nobody else in the local area wanting to go out to the other shop, so that's even more practice that I missed out on going into this upcoming Sunday's Local Qualifier.

But, alas. That's neither here nor there. Tonight was Commander Night, so I'm here to talk Magic, not FFTCG.

I joined another solo player and a group of two to make a pod of 4 tonight. One of the two showed up late, so out of the four games we played, one was with only three players.

Krenko, Mob Boss vs Ziatora the Incinerator and Miles "Tails" Prower

Our one game with a set of three, this game was quick. Despite only having three lands, I was able to power out a remarkable board state alongside playing Krenko not once but twice.

Unfortunately, Ziatora burned me out by giving Ziatora Infect through Tainted Strike, then flinging a Ghalta at my face using the Demon Dragon. Through my use of General Kreat and an Impact Tremors, Tails was already knocked to five life, so Ziatora finished the job the turn after.

Surrak, Elusive Hunter vs Ziatora, Hylda of the Icy Crown, and Kefka, Court Mage

With our fourth having now joined us, we shuffled up for our second game.

Kefka ran away with the game handily, having opened with a Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, ramping their mana outrageously. With Kefka's discard and sacrifice effects, it kept the rest of us from being able to much play our own decks.

Surrak vs Mr. Foxglove, Light-Paws, Voice of the Emperor, and Ulalek, Fused Atrocity

Wanting another game with Surrak, this time hopefully not held back by Kefka, I shuffled my deck back up once again.

Only for Light-Paws to rapidly accelerate through their Commander's own effect letting them snowball like mad. I did have a ton of mana, but unfortunately I was flooded heavily and wasn't able to do much with it for quite a number of turns.

Light-Paws took Foxglove out of the game in one shot, and I managed to barely politic myself into another turn. When Light-Paws swung for Ulalek, the Eldrazi were able to effectively put an end to Light-Paws's entire position by flickering the kitsune and effectively removing every Aura she had been wearing. This bought me time to begin stabilizing, and with my card draw I was able to start dropping several powerhouse creatures, including Ghalta and Bahamut.

Which were promptly turned against me when Ulalek stole them and swung them, taking me out of the game.

Krenko vs Ziatora, Ziatora, and Gyruda, Doom of Depths

Our final game of the night, we wanted the game to be fairly quick, so I pulled Krenko back out.

Unfortunately, my draws were pretty rancid, which didn't help me when one of the Ziatora swung a Jumbo Cactuar into the defenseless Gyruda, hitting them for 10,000 damage, then flung the Cactuar into me with Ziatora's end-of-turn trigger. A Beast Within targeting the other Ziatora when they tried to combo off with a Tainted Strike effectively won the game at that point, especially with recursion to bring back the Cactuar and swing it again the next turn thanks to The Fire Crystal giving it haste.

FFTCG Locals - August 11th, 2025

 Made my way out to the card shop tonight for FFTCG, honestly only expecting one other person to show - maybe two, as over the weekend, one of the other Pokémon Professors from the shop was suggesting an interest in possibly coming by.

To my surprise, we had a total of four players tonight, with the other Professor only hanging out and watching due to a limited familiarity with the modern FFTCG metagame, thus not feeling comfortable to try to play in the event, such as it was.

I was able to get in quite a number of games tonight, including a friendly game before we started in earnest, and a few friendlies after the fact.

Friendly Game: Mono-Lightning Scions vs Scions - Loss

While I was disappointed that I still haven't gotten quite all of the cards I've ordered for my Scions list to modify it to Fire/Lightning, I still wanted to play a little with my Scions, as I have still missed playing them with all of the Dragoons I've been playing otherwise.

That said, this game ended poorly for me. I started off with a decently aggressive start, but I got blown out - badly - when they had an LB Edge turn that wiped out my relatively meager board, from which I couldn't recover due to a lack of resources.

After this, our fourth showed up, we all made sure we were paid in, and we began the night. I played my Dragoons as the release of Gunslinger in the Abyss gave me a couple of new pieces to upgrade the deck with.

Game vs Sky Pirates - Loss

I got demolished by the Sky Rats this game. I never saw Alus, which hindered my resources significantly, and the Sky Pirates absolutely swarmed the field. With the new Vaan and new Ashe from Gunslinger, the Sky Pirates were given some extra consistency and a nice boost in attack power making their board even harder to deal with on the attack, as Basch and Ashe combined give a total of +4000 and Brave, with the Brave leaving Sky Pirates open for Balthier's ability to further buff them for even better combat math, or to give Haste where necessary.

Game vs Fire/Ice Priming - Win

I'm calling this a Fire/Ice Priming list, but there was still a strong element of Warriors throughout the list as well, including Taivas, Mizuki, and Akstar, mainstays in the Warriors deck even with the new Jill and Joshua added alongside the old Clive for additional Priming effects.

That said, I did take the win. I saw Alus, and the new Freya was able to put in a little bit of work for me throughout the game, keeping their Forwards decently in check while I plugged away at them for damage.

Game vs Mono-Earth Avalanche Operatives - Win

The new Tifa and Zangan make a pretty frightening duo to stare down, and the synergies among Avalanche Operatives meant that I was staring down a rather rapidly full suite of Backups to fuel the Mono-Earth deck's game plan.

That said, if new Freya put in work for me last game against Fire/Ice, she was an absolute godsend in this one. Between LB Kain and the new Freya, I was able to bounce back from three separate board wipes at the tentacles of JENOVA Synthesis, and wiped the board right back in retaliation. This despite new Freya's Special ability not being the mass-removal of the old Cherry Blossom Freya. Being able to pop a Forward with Dragon's Crest, and then another with her attack trigger was a sight to behold, and this game in particular makes me feel like new Freya was an absolutely massive boost to Dragoons.

Enough that, even though I was hoping to practice Fire/Lightning Scions (assuming my last package arrives before Wednesday), I might stick with Dragoons for the next Local Qualifier in a couple of weeks. We'll see how things go, and how I feel after Wednesday on that one.

But I digress. After this, we were finished, we all got our two packs for playing, and the Fire/Ice and Earth players bounced, while the Sky Pirates player wanted to get in a few friendlies to test out changes to their Crystals deck.

Friendly Game: Golbez vs Crystals - Loss

My first game with my Golbez list since the restriction of the 2-drop Light Yuna - a change made this past Friday with the release of Gunslinger - where I replaced two of the Yunas with a 3-drop Tidus I have an inordinate fondness for.

And, to put this succinctly, losing the consistency of the Yunas did nothing to help this deck. It was a fast, painful game in the Crystal deck's favor, with Vinera Fennes being able to blow my board out with her attack trigger - and my copy of Kalmia got knocked into Damage, keeping me away from my only protection from that sort of effect.

There's potentially room for the list to do something, I suppose, since the main shell of the deck, the Golbez and the Vikings are still there, with enough draw power that I should be able to hit either Materia to search for Yuna, or else hit Yuna directly, with at least semi-reliable frequency. I just need to figure out what to do with it, the Legend Tidus from set 16 is not the proper replacement for the restricted Yunas.

Friendly Best-of-3 Set: Scions vs Crystals - Loss

With both the Crystals player and I wanting another game, I put the Golbez away and pulled my Scions back out. Not something I mentioned above in the friendly Scion v Scion game, but the list is a little outdated technically, since I've been waiting to get my cards to shift over to the Fire/Lightning build before I commit to any changes, so it's added nothing from Gunslinger.

Regardless, if I weren't changing it to Fire/Lightning, Gunslinger wouldn't really offer many changes to the deck anyways.

The first two games were relatively quick. Game 1 I was able to rush right out of the gate with aggression and keep the pressure up, taking the Crystals down pretty quickly. Game 2, I didn't have quite the same amount of gas, and the Crystals were able to turn it around pretty quickly on me.

Game 3 was probably the closest of the three, but it was also kind of weird given the kinds of odd draws we were both dealing with. Ultimately, though, it went to the Crystals deck.

Playing Scions again tonight across the four games I did really has me champing at the bit to get the last of my ordered cards so I can swap it to the hyper-aggro list I want to turn it into, but I'm unfortunately forced to wait, with nothing I can do to speed up the postal service in getting them to me. At this point, I'm just hoping that they arrive before Wednesday night  - I'm currently planning to hit the other card shop for more FFTCG, since I won't have any other chances to get practice in before the next Local Qualifier due to work getting in the way.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - August 8th, 2025

 Showing up to the shop on my own as I do, I joined a group of 3 to get a Pod of 4 all night. I played a variety of different decks, including my newest, which I wanted to test out.

Surrak, Elusive Hunter vs Ragost, Deft Gastronaut, Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, and Karona, False God

This wound up a wildly aggressive game by all four of us. I had a fairly explosive turn 1, dropping a Sol Ring and Emerald Medallion, which provided me a ton of value over the course of the game. Several heavy haymakers from my side later, plus Ragoth hitting the table with its effect, we were all under twenty life within a few turns.

Eventually, I dropped Summon: Bahamut into play, and my opponents - Sephiroth in particular - not glomming on to what the completion of the Saga Dragon's Lore Counters would mean for the game meant that four turns later, I nuked everybody (bar myself, obviously) for nearly 40 damage, finishing the game out.

Cloud, Planet's Champion vs Sephiroth, Karona, and Slogurk, the Overslime

An early Drannith Magistrate on my end slowed the game down drastically for Sephiroth, and at least moderately for Slogurk. This was fortunate, since I was suffering a pretty nasty drought of mana, which kept me running incredibly slow throughout the game.

I did drop Cloud three times - the first time, he was countered, the second he got taken out by Sephiroth using Liliana, Dreadhorde General to force sacrifices, and the third he managed to stick around to finish out the game. Between runs with Cloud, I was using Raubahn as my primary attacker.

In truth, it was strictly my Shadowspear giving Lifelink to my attackers that kept me alive through the game. Without the life gained from that equipment, I would have lost the game quite early on. As it was, I was able to buy myself time to stabilize myself, and ultimately won with a heavily-loaded Cloud.

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed vs Sephiroth, Karona, and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Our third and final game of the night, in part because the previous game was kept slow thanks to my Magistrate, and in part because this game ran slow, grindy, and sloggy. Two aristocrats style decks kept boards well in-hand, even as I slowly pinged the table down with Y'shtola, an early Papalymo, and Black Mage's Rod.

While several effective board wipes occurred, I was able to keep Y'shtola around and used her to significant effect. Yawgmoth heavily whittled themselves down, which left me with room to eventually take the win after dropping Estinien into play, giving me a heavy-hitting attacker to finish my opponents off with.