After me and my team's abysmal performance yesterday, I was excited to head into Day 2 of the Winter Cup for the singles event. I brought along my Scions for the event, hoping that they would serve me better than my Dragoons had. Especially given that if I could make Top 48, I would receive two incredibly rare promotional cards - a Swords to Plowshares and 3-drop Fire Alphinaud that have interlinking art of Alisaie and Alphinaud.
Spoiler, today went drastically better for me than yesterday did. Not well enough to get the promos, unfortunately, but...
With just under 128 players, we had seven rounds of play today. Unlike yesterday, there was no break for lunch, nor was there any sort of a top cut.
Round 1 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Won 7-6
An absolute nail-biter of a game where my opponent and I had a removal war running for much of the game.
Ultimately, I won because of the Scions' ability to throw three or four bodies on the field at once, and a top-deck Estinien gave me a hasty threat that allowed me to finish the game out, taking my opponent from 2 to 7 in one turn. I also, fortunately, had burst luck on my side - or rather, my opponent did not have it on theirs, as they hit no removal in the count-up from 2 to 7.
This started me off infinitely better than I, personally, had done yesterday as it meant that I had earned at least one win, starting me off with a 1-0 record.
Round 2 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Lost 2-7
A significantly less close game. Among other things, I misplayed by trying a cute trick of using Cuchulainn against Taivas while the Warrior's search effect was on the stack, forcing my opponent to have a Warrior worth free-playing.
Or rather, my misplay was doing it twice. The first time around, I genuinely think it was the correct play to do so, even if they had the Akstar in hand. The second time around, however, was a mistake because while I didn't have an active Water Backup either time, the second time I was much worse off in terms of cards-in-hand, so discarding an entire card to cast the Cuchulainn put me down entirely too many resources, and the card draw from my summon wasn't enough to undo that damage.
This left me in top-deck for a good half of the game, giving my opponent entirely too much of a resource advantage for me to overcome.
Still, I was at a 1-1 record, so it wasn't too bad.
Round 3 vs Dragoons - Lost 5-7
Much like Round 1, this was a rather back-and-forth removal war. They had an Alus in play fairly early, which gave them a lot of extra card draw, more than I was able to get off of Tataru as the removal meant I wasn't able to keep enough Scions in play to draw off of her.
On what wound up my last turn, I made a significant misplay. My opponent had the 2-drop backup that could be cracked to bring back a Dragoon from the break zone, and 3-drop Freya in the break zone. I had two cards in hand, and could have played LB Gilgamesh to remove two cards from their break zone. Unfortunately, I did not do that, so they cracked the backup, got back the Freya, played her, and then used a Cherry Blossom to wipe my board.
I hit no EX Bursts, so they were able to cleanly swing their way through to finish me out.
My record was now 1-2.
Round 4 vs WoL7 - Lost 0-7
This was not a game.
This was a wholesale slaughter.
They hit WoL7 on turn 1, landed a Wind Y'shtola and the 3-drop Fire Alphinaud off of the ability, searching for something. If I had to hazard a guess, I assume they searched the Gilgamesh (FFBE) that they played on turn 2, which they got fully online and used to utterly destroy me on turns 2 and 3.
My last-ditch effort to save myself was trying to use Thancred to take out Gilgamesh, but unfortunately the Y'shtola stopped the removal effect.
This put my record at the much more precarious 1-3. My chances at getting into the Top 48 were at this point incredibly precarious.
Round 5 vs Knights - Won 7-2
Quite frankly, I think I got lucky. The Curillas that they played both halfway whiffed, getting them only one mostly useless 2-drop each. Subsequently, I was able to use my removal to incredible effect, keeping their board under control and grinding out the victory over them. The 9-drop LB Shantotto did some incredible work for me near the end of the game, as my opponent mentioned that if I had left them with two Forwards, they would've been in a much better place, but removing two Forwards the way I did basically locked the win in my favor.
This put me back up to a comfortable 2-3. Still iffy, but back on the right track.
Round 6 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Won 7-1
This game was practically surgical. I had every answer I needed, basically exactly when I needed them. I didn't have a lot of my recursion, but I still had ample amounts of removal. Three turns in a row, I drew the Pulse of Creation Y'shtola and used her to handily delete several Forwards. The last turn of the game was in fact the turn I drew my third Y'shtola, using her and a W/L Lightning from my break zone to remove their last two blockers, opening up Lightning and Thancred to get the last two points of damage in.
At 3-3, I was feeling genuinely hopeful again that I might have been able to place well.
Round 7 vs The Twelve - Won 7-1
A fairly quick game because I came out with my proverbial guns blazing. I played aggressively, hit my opponent as hard and fast as I could, and while they had some solid removal that left me sweating, I was able to quickly build back afterwards and used my own removal to clear a path for more damage.
My final turn I took a gamble by playing the LB Lunafreya, successfully nabbing a 5-drop Odin that I used to pop their only blocker, then swung in with Alisaie and Thancred to deal the last bit of damage. Even if they had been able to Burst and take out Thancred, I had two cards in hand meaning I could've brought back G'raha Tia with Thancred's ability and paid 4 to go search out an Estinien who, having haste, could've finished the game out regardless.
This put my final record at a (barely, but still) winning 4-3.
Conclusion
My final placement was 54th out of somewhere around 125 (less than 128, the judges knew, because at 128 we would've had additional rounds of play, but it was around there).
If I had done slightly better, or had better tie-breakers, I might have been able to get into the top 48 and gotten the promos, but alas.
I still had a winning record and did land in the top half of the placements. I can hardly complain about such a showing, especially when this was my first time attending an event of this size.
Plus with the producer of the game present, meaning I was able to get a couple of things signed - my playmat and one of my Warrior of Light Promos - the event was memorable for a variety of reasons.
While the team event yesterday was a disappointing showing for me that had me incredibly discouraged, I still had fun the entire weekend.
Likewise, I'm glad that I didn't drop out today when my record hit 1-3, as I was able to pull myself back out and land at 4-3, which on some level helps to validate my desire to "be good" at this game and helped me feel better after yesterday's failings, as I do want to take this game as seriously as I can.
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