A weirdly low-feeling turnout of only four people showed for FFTCG tonight, but that was enough to technically run locals properly.
Still in preparation for the upcoming Winter Cup, I continued my trend of playing my Dragoons for tonight.
Game 1 vs Sky Pirates - Loss
I lost the roll and the Sky Pirates went first, having an incredibly explosive turn one, dropping into play Fran, Balthier, and honestly I forget what else because I jotted down my notes after Round 2. I do remember that a Jote hit the field fairly early on, which fetched a second copy of Fran after I hit the 6-drop Aranea as an EX Burst, removing the Fran.
On my end, I didn't see Alus until around turn 3 or 4. I tried my best to play out as much as I could, and even managed to avoid the mistake of dumping everything I had into immediately dropping the Prince - in part because I don't think I had the resources necessary to, but also just the fact that I've lost one too many games to letting myself focus too hard on doing so.
I did manage to maintain a defense for several turns, thanks to the 3-drop Cherry Blossom Freya and LB Kain presenting just enough damage to be a threat to keep the Sky Pirates at bay, although it was fairly deep into the game when I got that duo set up. Late enough that when they dropped Neo Exdeath to wipe the board, and I barely managed to throw out two Cherry Blossoms - one for 8k and one for 6k because I had to pop one of my backups to "draw" a second copy of Freya - they were able to, barely, save their Basch and Ashe. That allowed them to finish the game out by swinging into me for the last two points of damage.
Game 2 vs Cat VII - Win
In a complete 180, this game went as swimmingly for me as it possibly could have. I had Alus in my opening hand, playing the Prince out, and following that up with a Ricard who fished out 3-drop Freya for me, the only card I had in my hand at the end of the turn. Over the course of the game, the resources from Alus gave me a lot of power to push through the few threats that they managed to play.
This included getting the 4-drop Freya on turn 2, which I played alongside the beefy 2-drop Dragoon that gets bigger with each other Dragoon I have in play. My opponent, more concerned with the beefy 2-drop because of its scaling Power, spent their resources to destroy it, throwing both Zangan and Tifa at it to make absolutely certain it went to the Break Zone. This gave me the room I needed to hit Tifa with a Dragon's Crest from Freya, and having been left in play she proceeded to pick my opponent apart over the rest of the game, removing Zangan, a Cloud, and Barret with her on-attack auto-ability. Possibly some other Forwards as well, but it was quick and nearly surgical regardless, especially as I swarmed over the field with numerous other Dragoons.
Game 3 vs Mono-Fire Xande - Loss
And back around to me getting picked apart by my opponent. There were two turns that effectively defined this game, one early that set me behind, and one late that served as the final nail in my coffin.
The early turn saw me play out 3-drop Freya and the beefy 2-drop Dragoon to try to take out the Zeromus and Xande (both from Opus 27, Journey of Discovery) that my opponent had played out previously. I activated Cherry Blossom for exactly 8k damage, only for Freya to eat an Ifrit to the face, knocking me down to one too few Dragoons to clear the field. This left Xande open to wipe out my field with his auto-ability turn after turn.
The final nail was, as I said, near the end of the game. I had managed to build up more Dragoons thanks to getting a few backups in play, and I played the 5-drop power loss Dragoon to target Xande, including paying the 4 I needed to get through Zeromus's tax. The Dragoon then ate an Amaterasu, preventing the removal and breaking the Dragoon in the process because of the 8k. This left me with no resources to stop my opponent from removing my last two Forwards and closing out the game.
With hindsight, I realize I should have waited and tried to bait out removal towards Freya before I tried the Cherry Blossom, that way I would've had the ability go off before she was removed. That, or perhaps I should've just ate a little more damage so I could try to play some additional Dragoons before taking the swing with Cherry Blossom so that I still would've had enough damage to wipe out the Xande and Zeromus. Either way, I heavily misplayed that turn.
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