A total of eight players showed up for tonight's Locals, which is frankly a lot more than I was initially expecting given that it was just a "normal" local event, during the "off-season" competitively, and the shop wasn't running a Win-A-Box as they were the last time I was able to make it out.
This is not a complaint, for the record. I was thrilled. It was still only three rounds, but I made significant changes to my Scions list since last time I played them - including investing the heavy price tag for W/L Lightnings to play the "proper" Scions deck - and wanted as much practice as I could get. Every game I played today was with that deck.
Which is why I was glad to play a friendly match with another player who had shown early.
Friendly Match vs Mono-Fire - Win
This was an extraordinarily tense game for me, because Mono-Fire's suite of removal can keep me away from the mass of Scions I otherwise want to have available. Fortunately, my Alisaies and Estiniens gave me enough recursion to outlast the removal.
Not long after we finished this game, our Round 1 pairings were given out, and the event was begun in earnest.
Round 1 vs Mono-Lightning - Win
Much like the Mono-Fire game just prior to this, this was a decidedly tense game thanks to a ton of removal - including Break Zone removal - from my opponent. In the end, the score was 7 to 6 in my favor.
The turn that ultimately gave me the game was one in which I popped my Alphinaud to revive Alisaie, which gave me a necessary revival on a G'raha, who then brought in either Y'shtola or Thancred to remove my opponent's Forwards - I forget exactly which, since I wound up ending my turn with both in play. G'raha being buffed by an Astrologian gave me an insurmountable wall that made sure my opponent couldn't get around my board for their last point of damage.
Round 2 vs Mono-Earth - Loss
Lots of mono-element decks that I ran into today. Kind of made me want a mono-element list that's not also Job-focused (such as my Dragoons, or even my myriad attempts at mono-lightning Scions), but that's just a personal "Man, that grass looks so green" thought.
Regardless.
Turn 1, my opponent played Epitav to search for Leo. On turn 2, they went from 1 Backup straight to 5, playing a Miner, who nabbed Minfilia, and when Minfilia hit the board, they used her ability to get back the Leo and the WoL4 that they had discarded to help pay for her. Minfilia was followed up by two Leatherworkers for free. This left them ending turn 2 with 5 backups and a hand consisting of Leo and WoL4.
This was, frankly speaking, more than enough. Turn 3 saw them drop Leo and WoL4, activating their backups again so that they could go even further with the other cards that they had drawn. I was able to remove the WoL4 and got a point of damage in, but a second promptly hit the field, followed by Earth/Water Sophie, who added some extra, passive damage to the mix.
I did manage to land about 4 points on them, if I remember correctly, but the outrageous amount of early resources that they had gave them the early lead and I really couldn't catch up despite my best efforts.
Round 3 vs Mono-Fire - Win
The same opponent as the friendly game from before we got started in earnest, and another mono-element deck, technically.
Much like the friendly, this game was tight and tense for me. They were mildly frustrated at the fact that a relatively early Krile made their removal math so much harder, and my recursion (combined with their inability to find the Cloud in their list that would have potentially removed Forwards from my Break Zone and prevented my recursion), and I wish at the time I could've better explained that the Krile was the only reason that their removal didn't run roughshod over me.
I digress.
They had a Clive that Primed and kept control over the game for a few turns in the middle of the game, but I was finally able to remove it solely because I had 5 full backups, and was able to drop the W/L Lightning, an LB Leo, and then my LB Tidus who I could then pay the extra cost from, removing the Ifrit and one of their Backups, as well as giving me more cards in hand. This removal gave me the ability to claw control of the game back, even after they removed nearly all of my Forwards again.
Conclusion
I kind of hate the fact that spending the money on the Lightnings was the right choice. W/L Scions is a lot of fun and incredibly strong.
Although I didn't do so well against Mono-Earth, I don't know how much of that was the deck, how much was me not knowing the W/L version of Scions quite as well as I'd like, and how much of that was just the insane turn 2 giving them such a massive pile of resources to play the game with.
I will almost definitely try to make this my competitive deck of choice for the next season once LQs and such start back up (give or take my work schedule getting in the way of my attending LQs), and I look forward to seeing how far I'm able to go with it.
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