After my last week off from work saw not one but two Limited events for the Final Fantasy TCG, this week was my first one back and playing in a constructed event. We had a total of ten players show up tonight, pushing the event to four rounds, no less!
After having collected everything I needed to build my list, I played the brand new Water/Lightning MBM list for tonight's event, wanting to try the deck out.
It, uh. It went really well for me.
Round 1 vs Mono-Earth - Win 7-0
My first game with the MBM deck, and as soon as I realized what my opponent was playing, I was frankly terrified. This Mono-Earth list has demolished me time and time again, and I was more than a little nervous about how I would do against it with a brand new deck that I had never played before.
Turns out I didn't need to worry over much. My opening hand gave me the means to come out swinging, and I had just enough removal at the right times that I was able to take my opponent to 5 damage pretty easily.
Unfortunately, they managed a turn where they were able to set up a difficult-to-clear board state, and if I didn't manage to punch through them somehow, I would get my board wiped on their next turn. Making matters worse, I had one Lightning backup and no cards in hand at the end of that turn, so I was reliant entirely on my top-decks.
Fortunately, luck was with me, giving me the exact cards I needed to clear the way: Multi-Element Lightning and a Water Card. Vaan in particular, though the specific card was irrelevant. I was able to play the W/L Lightning, dulling one Forward and drawing a card. Then I went into combat, party attacked with Balthier and Ashe, dulling both of their other Forwards and getting the 6th point of damage in, then Lightning finished the job.
A good start for MBM.
Round 2 vs Warriors of the Crystal - Win 7-0
Honestly, I very nearly forgot who I had even played against in this round, because the fact that the night was a four-rounder had thrown me off that much. While getting food after locals, I eventually worked my way through to remembering what it was I had gone up against.
So as for exactly how this game shook out? I could not for the life of me say. I know the result, but I don't remember how I got there.
Still, another solid point for the MBM list as it took another clean game.
Round 3 vs Earth/Wind Retainers - Win 7-2
So in spite of MBM looking rather like some sort of tempo-y midrange list on paper, it was around this game where I started thinking that it might secretly be an aggro list. My opponent was - justifiably, I will concede - deeply annoyed at playing against the deck, because I was able to so thoroughly flood the board, and if I could manage to have Penelo with a board state allowing her ability to activate, I could shut down the Retainers' game plan:
Retainers start off by dropping some flavor of Noctis and snowballing from there into their board state. If I had Penelo active, then in response to any of Noctis's auto-abilities, I could force my opponent to sacrifice Noctis before they could really go any further from there. I didn't have Penelo available to stop their Noctis plays, however - though I did use it to force removal of a Wind/Earth Y'shtola that had been made untargetable previously, as Penelo's ability not directly targeting circumvents such protections - but I still had an incredibly full board that was able to use Balthier's auto-ability to dull away all of their blockers and bring a swift end to the game.
Round 4 vs Earth/Wind Category IX - Win 7-1
This was a weird deck. At its heart, it's more of an Unei/Sophie control deck that happens to run a core of Category IX cards to help facilitate its Summons, in part because Garnet helps to make their summons easier to cast while also making my summons harder to cast.
Fortunately, I don't run very many summons, but the ones I do...
I digress. This was a weird game, because I wasn't able to play nearly as aggressively as I had been for the past three rounds, and I got to actually see the more controlling side of the MBM deck come through as I worked to figure my way around the locks my opponent was trying to set up around me.
Ultimately, I was able to take the win.
We did play a second game afterwards, just as a friendly, and they set a lot of their plan that game to very specifically stopping me from doing my MBM things - they bounced my turn 1 Montblanc and Penelo, used the three drop "Aqua-mat" Leviathan to stop my LB Ashe's auto-ability to flip five cards and grab an MBM from the revealed, and several other things. This is, in effect, what their deck wants to do regardless, but they were willing to dedicate a lot of resources at various points to doing so, resources that I'm not sure they would've otherwise been willing to dedicate.
Still, it was a good exercise in seeing what happens with the deck when I'm held back and have to work harder to fulfill my plan.
I lost the friendly, for the record, the only game I lost all night, but I digress.
Conclusion
There's a part of me that hates how good this deck felt to play. There was admittedly a lot of luck involved, but all four of my games for the actual Locals event tonight went smoothly. For being a completely brand new deck, I don't think I made any particular, major misplays at any point, my draw luck was great - especially in Round 1 when I got the exact two cards I needed to take the game on that turn before my board could get wiped - the play lines seemed to be pretty sensible.
Every game, more or less, I was able to drop at least a Turn 1 Backup, and follow that up with Turn 2 LB Ashe. I never whiffed off of Ashe's on-entry auto-ability (though I know having now committed that to text, it will happen at an inopportune time), her combat auto gave me the means to constantly get a third body on the board, either another Backup to prep me for a longer haul or another Forward if I just wanted to present more pressure.
But, for that part of me that hates how good this felt, there's another part of me that loved every second of it. Yes, I briefly felt a little dirty about it during Round 3 when it tilted my opponent as hard as it did, but otherwise? It felt like a nice, middle-ground between my Scions, my Dragoons, and my The Twelve. It's efficient, synergistic, has solid removal, decent amounts of search and card draw even before getting into my LB deck (aside from Ashe), Penelo's ability lets me play a little bit of a control game if I need to by forcing sacrifices that get around Forwards that could be otherwise untargetable.
I genuinely might make MBM my deck-of-choice for the more competitive Organized Play events when those finally pick back up, taking the spot I had been planning my Scions to occupy. I'll have to see. Tonight might have just been a fluke, a spot of outrageous luck. Time will tell.
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