Today was the LCQ I had been looking forward to participating in for the past few weeks. I don't know how much I'll be able to really participate in competitive FFTCG events this season, so there's honestly a non-zero chance that this is the only event that I'm able to make it to.
So when the event was announced as being 6 rounds due to a total of 33 players, I was hoping that I would at least break even and go 3-3, if not in fact manage a winning record. It...
Didn't go that way for me. I still did alright for myself, but I ended the day with a losing record, going 2-4, playing my Dragoons.
There were a few factors at play for that decision. One was, from sheer practicality, I already had a copy of the decklist printed and ready for an event. Second was that Dragoons would have been a solid call into the meta that's been seen at Materia Cups and other LCQs. Third was that despite my putting them on the shelf for several months ever since the Winter Cup, they are still probably my most well-practiced deck at a competitive level.
But despite having a losing record, I still feel incredibly proud of my performance for reasons that I'll get into later.
Round 1 vs Ice/Fire Warriors - Lose 4-7
An incredibly close game between the two of us, with Freyas putting in a lot of work and Kain helping to keep them running - even when Kain ate Amaterasus for his trouble. Unfortunately, this particular player claims to basically thrive in a more control-oriented "long game" situation, and they did run a few cards that aren't necessarily in a lot of other Warriors lists, including Ice/Lightning Zeromus, which gave them a few extra points of control to give themselves control of the game in the end.
Round 2 vs Warriors of Light - Lose 3-7
A second loss in a row, which was probably not a good omen in hindsight. This was a game where I was in a rather commanding position over my opponent until a single turn where they were able to completely turn things on their head, dropping several Forwards in play all at once, including their one copy of Refia and the LB Warrior of Light, which enabled them to remove several of my Forwards from play.
I was able to come up with two pieces of removal, taking out the WoL and Refia, but a Cu Sith bringing Refia back at the end of my turn saw both the Refia get immediately replayed, followed by a second copy of the LB WoL.
I did not have another two pieces of removal. I was stuck losing to their very well-established position.
Round 3 vs Cat IV Monsters - Win 7-0
I came out swinging fairly hard and fast, playing pretty aggressively and getting my opponent pretty well battered pretty quickly. They were a bit tilted, in their words, in part due to being 0-2 with the list while a friend of theirs, playing the same, was at the time 2-0 - the deck just wasn't working out well for them, and it was getting under their skin.
They made a few misplays in the last couple turns of the game as well, which they called out on themselves almost as soon as said turns were over, which left things open for me to finish the game rather swiftly. With us having finished as fast as we did, we reported our results, and then played a friendly with the remaining time-in-round, which I won again, this time going 7-2.
This game was why I'm proud of my performance today. The player I was up against is a Worlds-caliber player, another of my locals regularly happy to brag about a time that they took this same player to a Game 3 at a previous LCQ at some point last season.
So with my taking our "important" game 7-0, and then our friendly follow-up 7-2, I'm incredibly pumped about that, even if I wound up with a losing record at the end of the day.
Round 4 vs Dragoons - Lose 1-7
Dragoon Mirror! And it was against the same player I had my mirror match against at last week's locals.
And much like last week's locals, I got outplayed. They drew better, had access to Cherry Blossom Freya for mass removal, and generally had better value from their cards than what I was getting from mine.
I can't even be mad, all said, because the Dragoon Mirror is always a blast to play.
Round 5 vs WoL 7 - Win 7-3
I should not have won this game.
We had a pretty even pace against each other at first, but they eventually had a solid turn with several bodies in play, including Gilgamesh (FFBE) with enough Elements in their Break Zone to give Gilgamesh the buff, Haste, First Strike, and Dull-Freeze attack auto-ability. I had one blocker in play.
My opponent proceeded to swing only their 2-drop Fire/Water Firion into my blocker, letting the 6-drop Aranea devour the young Rebel. And then they passed their turn.
This gave me the breathing room to successfully get 3-Drop Freya and Cherry Blossom their board away, giving me the win. When I asked what they were thinking with the turn where they swung Firion into my Aranea, and didn't swing Gilgamesh? "I just plain forgot."
Again. I shouldn't have won this game. But my opponent making the mother of all misplays gave me the undeserved victory. I'll take it.
Round 6 vs Mono-Fire - Lose 5-7
This was one of, if not the most tense game of FFTCG I've ever played.
Neither of us could really establish a truly dominant board position over the other. I had a stronger board earlier on, but they had enough damage output to clear that board away and reduce the threat I presented. In turn, I was able to use several Freyas to wipe out their board a few times and keep them in check right back.
I eventually misplayed, popping a Backup to get a copy of Freya back from my Break Zone to fuel a Cherry Blossom. A Cherry Blossom that, due to the loss of the Backup, meant I wasn't able to break the Phoinix I was trying to catch with the removal. They followed that up with a misplay of their own several turns later, where the Zack from last year's Starter Decks took out my Freya, leaving me with only two Forwards and disabling Zack's Haste.
A few more removal trades eventually saw them with just the Phoinix and LB Machina in play. I popped Machina with LB Cloud, and waited, as I couldn't get through the bird.
This was met with The Demon, who removed my Break Zone - including all six of my "good" Freyas, the 3-drops and 4-drops both - to delete Cloud. This was the nail that sealed my coffin as The Demon made it impossible for me to build any other board state from there, and while I fought and flailed for a few turns, there was nothing I could do in the end. The writing was on the wall, I ended up scooping, giving my opponent the much deserved win.
Unfortunately, this only put them in 10th place, not quite making the Top 8 Cut, but alas.
Conclusion
I am drained. Six solid rounds of FFTCG, including some incredibly tense games that forced me to think incredibly hard about how to handle the threats I was facing down, and Round 3 having a second friendly that was even rougher than the "actual" round meaning I had seven games of FFTCG today, was a fair bit.
Even with a deck like Dragoons that I know incredibly well, that was still quite a lot for me, and there's a part of me that's almost glad I didn't get anywhere near the top cut as a consequence.
I still look forward to swinging out to my Locals tomorrow night, and I hope that I can make it to more events this competitive season.
No comments:
Post a Comment