Another Monday night, another round of FFTCG at the shop.
Tonight, I elected to pull out The Twelve, because I'm still trying to feel out what deck I really want to commit to using for the competitive season - assuming, of course, that I can participate in any Competitive events this season. Materia Cups for the North American season were finally announced, and there are unfortunately only two dates I could even hope to make - and one of those is already sold out.
Frustratingly, my local shop is hosting a Materia Cup on the same weekend as a convention I'd already made plans to attend that will have me on the opposite side of the state. Deeply frustrated at that. Regardless, sort of hoping that I can at least make it to a few Local Championship Qualifiers, if and when those get dates announced.
Ah well. Back to the topic at hand: Tonight's Locals, and my playing The Twelve. We had 8 players tonight, which made for a 3 Round event.
Round 1 vs Wind-Lightning Crystals - Won 7-6
The same Wind-Lightning Crystals that I played against last week, I admit I mostly won this in part because they had a devil of a time coming up with resources in Wind. Among other things, they saw no Wind Backups except for damage.
Despite that, they had me quickly at 6 damage before I could get even a single point of damage in. This made the game drastically tense for me, as I had to figure out how to fight my way out of that deep corner that I had been backed into.
Eventually, thanks to the fortune of some removal, I was able to fight my way out of that corner, clear away their board, and start establishing a dominant position myself. Even through two separate board clears, I was able to barely keep ahead of them, and eventually I knocked them to 7 damage. They did realize after the fact that there were a couple of turns where they made significant misplays, which alongside their lacking Wind resources helped me out dramatically.
Round 2 vs Warriors of the Crystal - Won 7-0
More Crystals! This one a much different list, of course. I was able to play a much more relaxed game for the first few turns, building myself quickly to 5 backups. Once my front line of Forwards started getting built up, I was able to establish some decent dominance over the game.
A 7-drop Shantotto backup wiping away several of my powerhouse Forwards did slow me down, and not insignificantly, but I was able to rebuild before they were able to capitalize on the board wipe.
Round 3 vs Water-Lightning Monsters - Lost 5-7
My one and only loss for the night, but it was a phenomenal game with a lot of back and forth going on. We traded control over the board back and forth a few times, with Witch of the Fens doing a lot of heavy lifting for them, though I was able to remove her both times she hit the table.
In the end, however, I was unable to manage it. The turn that really sealed my fate saw Witch of the Fens wipe my board by eating so many of their Monsters, with a Cloud from the LB deck removing my Zoraal Ja. This left them with enough pressure that unless I top-decked another WoL4, I wasn't going to be able to establish enough bodies to keep myself safe.
I did not top-deck the WoL4. Trying to draw with Nymeia didn't secure anything useful for me either, so I was "stuck" with my only play being to drop Rhalgr, being the removal for the second Witch. Unfortunately, multi-element Lightning from the Break Zone dulled Rhalgr, leaving me wide open for the final swing.
Conclusion
Oh man, The Twelve still feel weird to me, though this is admittedly only the second time I've played the deck.
Still, other than my first game against Wind-Lightning Crystals, it felt way less weird than I remember it feeling that first night I had tried it out. It's another strong contender for my deck-of-choice for the upcoming competitive season, alongside Category MBM and my Scions.
Still, until and unless the rest of the competitive season gets announced, I have time to figure that out.
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