A nice, casual FFTCG night since there was no Winter Cup for us to all be winding down from today. We had a grand total of seven players show up today, which is honestly a fairly hefty Monday night.
I was originally planning to play my newly modified, now-Mono-Fire Crystals list, but when I was musing over whether to play that or my brand new The Twelve deck, a couple of tonight's other players suggested I play The Twelve instead.
So, I shuffled up my The Twelve list.
And for my first time playing it, it certainly made an impression on me.
We had three rounds of play tonight, and I did not get the Bye in any of those three.
Round 1 vs Cat VII - Win
My first ever game actually playing The Twelve. It was tense.
I successfully got Turn 1 Llymlaen off of a Turn 1 Koana, meaning I was able to play the game in the long run since I had the color-fixing for my deck's primary engine. However, after that, my setup took me a while. My opponent was able to pretty handily beat me to Damage 6, mostly off the backs of Tifa and Zangan, all while I slowly tried to build up my Backup line. Damage 5, I hit Erenville, and used his EX Burst to take a wild swing - I searched for a Zoraal Ja, despite having no Lightning cards in hand to play him with. I then got hit to Damage 6, and needed a big time Hail Mary to turn the game around.
That Hail Mary came in the form of successfully top-decking a Lightning card. I dropped Zoraal Ja, quietly thanked my lucky stars Zangan was dull and couldn't pop the lizard, then swung in, breaking both Tifa and Zangan. Following up with a Wuk Lamat to block, I had a little momentum back in my favor. Momentum that I kept going into the next turn, when I drew 4-color Warrior of Light - who I was able to successfully cast thanks to the collection of elements in The Twelve's backups - followed up by LB Maat. Zoraal Ja again removed what Forwards my opponent put in play to try to delay me, Wuk and WoL4 put in some extra damage, and my next turn after that was all it took.
Certainly an interesting first impression, since I genuinely thought my opponent was going to take me out before I could even see enough backups to get set up at all. But once I got set up, and Zoraal Ja hit the field with his Damage 5 ability active, it quickly turned around fiercely in my favor.
Round 2 vs "Kefka Toolbox" - Lose
So ostensibly, this was a deck built around doing funny things with the Kefka from Journey of Discovery, who on entry breaks a Forward and gets back a Backup from the Break Zone.
This game, my opponent did not do that. This game, my opponent simply beat me down with Seymour from the same set.
I successfully hit Turn 1 Llymlaen again, using LB Lunafreya to dig for her, but my opponent dropped Seymour, and at that point all of my resources were gone. My two Backups were kept frozen all game, my hand was constantly stripped bare, and I just could not play the game, at all. Even my one attempt to swing in and deal a point of damage was thwarted by an Ice/Lightning Sephiroth with Back Attack who broke the LB Cloud that I had tried to swing with.
A frustrating loss, but unfortunately there's nothing to be done for it. Seymour is an annoyingly strong card, and I simply had no outs for him. Even my deck's EX Bursts wouldn't have accomplished much for me, as I didn't have enough The Twelve in play to get Althyk "online", nor for Azeyma to deal enough damage to Seymour.
Round 3 vs Ice-Light Madeen - Win
A fairly long, grindy game against a control shell that has a few identity issues.
Despite those issues, the deck did keep me held back pretty handily. For the third game in a row, I hit the Turn 1 Llymlaen, so I was able to successfully play all of my The Twelve pretty easily. Unlike game 1, I was able to get my Backup line established relatively quickly, and it was a matter of drawing enough Forwards to start establishing a real board presence.
Once I started seeing a few Forwards, however, the game quickly became mine to win. Zoraal Ja once again hit the field, and though he was broken at some point, I top-decked a second one the turn right after, bringing the lizard back into play, keeping me ahead alongside Azeyma doing much the same as Zoraal Ja.
Conclusion
The Twelve is...
Weird.
I like what they can do, and I've been on the receiving end numerous times, so I know how strong the deck can be. But in my hands, it felt slow. The setup took some time, and in Game 1 in particular I felt frustrated at how difficult it was for me to get anything established, while my opponent steadily beat me down. Game 3, however, felt like it went significantly more smoothly, but it still took it some time to get established, even if I locked the game down once it did.
It's certainly a list that I'll play again in the future, or at least I most likely will. I just need to sit on how I feel about it for now.
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