Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier - August 9th, 2026

 Final Fantasy TCG Local Qualifier! A shop about an hour and a half to two hours away from me, a shop I used to frequent for a few different games years and years ago. Last year (give or take a couple of months due to differences in the LQ schedule) I played my 47 Forwards Golbez deck for the very first time, and got bodied, going 1-4 in that event.

Today, I made a bold decision and played a good deck that I actually have some amount of practice with, Fire-Water Warriors.

Unfortunately, I didn't do much better this year than I did last year. I'm not completely certain how many players we had in total, but I know it was a five-round event for the Swiss portion before it cut to the Top 8, which I was nowhere near attaining - I believe I came in 17th place in the end.

Round 1 vs Ice-Wind Crystals - Lose 2-7

I had a fairly aggressive start, while my opponent had no Forwards for several turns. Unfortunately, the fact that they didn't have any Forwards meant that I was making a lot of awkward plays to try to avoid "wasting" my on-entry damage effects such as Ward or Akstar.

And a lot of those awkward plays were likely incredibly incorrect plays to make, as well.

Once my opponent did get a few Forwards in play, their Remnants and Yuffie were able to establish a lock against me and kept the game firmly under control from there, taking me to 7 over the course of a few turns.

Round 2 vs Sky Pirates - Lose 4-7

I made way too many misplays into a deck that's not a great matchup for me to begin with. My opponent getting a Gabranth EX Burst on the first point of damage I dealt them, allowing them to go grab Ashe, one of the most powerful cards in the deck in terms of utterly wrecking my chances against them given the way that the Princess effectively blanks much and more of my removal.

At the end of the game, I made a drastic misplay when I could have maybe turned things around, but ultimately I didn't fully see the line and was taken out.

Round 3 vs Three-Color Warriors - Win 7-0

About here is when in the day I started really waking up enough to get properly back into the swing of playing Warriors.

Unfortunately, this came about just in time for the both of us to play an incredibly weird game, with us both dumping a ton of resources into basically slow-building into a mutual stalemate as we both had Yuzuki in play to prevent much and more of the other's removal effects.

Eventually, I broke the stalemate. I had a much larger board to begin with, and I played a Cuchulainn into their Yuzuki to blank her damage-prevention. When their Zeromus "ward" auto-ability triggered, I played an Amaterasu to counter the ability and break the Zeromus. Swinging in left my opponent in a position where there wasn't much they could do on their turn, especially when they misplayed by dropping a Clive and priming into Ifrit (XVI) instead of using Seymour as they were originally planning to do. My own Yuzuki being still in play meant that there was nothing they could do to take my field out at all, at least not with the mighty Eikon.

Round 4 vs Griever - Lose 0-7

So I've never played against Griever, so this was a new and novel experience for me.

One I would not recommend. Griever being online early, with me having no answer to the malevolent Guardian Force, meant that my hand was ripped apart and left me with almost no resources, since I only had two Backups for much of the game.

Unfortunately, I didn't hit enough EX Bursts to save myself on the last turn of the game.

Round 5 vs Mono-Fire Warriors - Win 7-0

A self-admitted newer player who had honestly drawn a bit poorly.

Frankly speaking, I ran pretty roughshod over them.

Conclusion - Final Record 2-3

My only wins today were in the pseudo-mirrors, playing against other Warrior decks. My first couple of rounds I was playing poorly into not-great matches, and as I noted above, by round 3 I was awake enough to start playing my deck more or less properly - though I was probably still making misplays in places. Unfortunately, that was just in time for me to have the incredibly bizarre round 3 game that I had, followed by Griever in round 4.

All in all, a losing record means I'm not thrilled with my performance, but I'm also not entirely unhappy with how I did.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - August 7th, 2026

 Another night of Commander at the card shop. I got in with a group of folks that I've played with before, though most nights they already have a "full" pod, so it's been some time since I've gotten the opportunity to play alongside them.

The shop was packed for The Hobbit prerelease, so there were comparatively few Commander players out. With the group of folks I played with, we got through three games, one with a group of four, and then we had a fifth hop in for the other two. Given the layout of the table we were playing at, it was actually shockingly easy to keep track of everything despite having the fifth person.

I admit that detail for these is going to be lacking. It was storming fiercely when I left the shop, so a lot of my focus was on getting safely home, and I hadn't taken down a lot of notes about each game and how my decks were operating.

Game 1 - Saheeli, Radiant Creator

For the first game of the night, and our only four-person game, I pulled out my Saheeli deck. I haven't played it in a while, and I just sort of wanted to.

The game was one where we all kind of got to "do our thing" a little bit, though I didn't really feel like I got to do as much of "my thing" as I would've liked due to somewhat limited resources. Not so limited I couldn't do anything, but limited enough to keep me from making a significant impact on the game.

Meanwhile, the Edgar Markov beside me didn't have quite the same issue, and the vampire deck ran over the rest of us.

Game 2 - Yuna, Grand Summoner

The game where I played the least amount of Magic. I had Yuna, a couple of other mana dorks, a few solid Summons to swing into the field, and O'aka as a draw engine...

And then a board wipe hit the field, and I wasn't able to draw into enough replacements to really get back into the game.

Game 3 - Bartz Klauser (Winota, Joiner of Forces)

And for our third and final game of the night, I pulled out my Winota deck, which just got a couple of small upgrades added to it recently from some singles I received.

I had a resoundingly powerful first few turns, dropping in a handful of Goblins, including General Kreat, and throwing around a couple of points of damage before I played Winota on turn 4. With General Kreat, the Fanatical Firebrand, and the Token that General Kreat had made on turn 3, I had three Winota Triggers immediately, which saw me drop in Alexios, Minwu/Mangara, and Greymond.

Alexios got through one of my opponent's turn before he ate a Deadly Rollick. And then a Toxic Deluge hit the field and wiped out the board, setting almost everyone back significantly - except the Y'shtola player, who had saved their board with a Teferi's Protection.

Over the next several turns, the rest of us worked together to try to take the Y'shtola player down, as they built up a dangerous lead thanks to their board being the only one to survive the Deluge. An Ethersworn Canonist tried to keep things in check, though Delney, Streetwise Lookout kept the Y'shtola player running well, especially with a Curiosity on the catgirl that provided a ton of card draw on top of her own ability. With my Bartz/Winota getting counterspelled when I made my only other possible opportunity to play her, I was stuck playing without my Commander and the ability that actually makes the deck operate the way it's supposed to.

Eventually we took out the Y'shtola, but the three of us who survived the matter were all down to around 3 life points each. I made the decision to play "kingmaker" and take one of the other players before getting overrun by the last remaining opponent.

Pokémon League - August 6th, 2026

 How long has it been since I've shuffled up to play the Pokémon TCG? Flipping back through my archives, the last time I wrote up a blog post about playing the TCG was late last June, after not one but two GLC Events in a row had left me feeling tilted and realizing that I wasn't having as much fun with the TCG as I would have liked.

Tonight, after well over a year since the last time I really dedicated a night to playing the Pokémon TCG, I decided to give it another go, on the condition that we would've otherwise had an odd number of players, as that meant I could eliminate a bye round for our players.

Given that I'm writing this post up, I'm sure you can figure out whether or not we had an odd number of players other than me.

As I haven't gotten around to gathering all of the pieces I would need to build the new "Hide 'n' Sneak" deck that Pitch Black put to print, I pulled out my faithful Festival Lead, a deck I've been playing (give or take my more-than-a-year off) since it first came out during Twilight Masquerade. Despite my hiatus, I've been making sure to keep it upgraded in a few places as new sets and new tools have come out, such as running Lillie's Determinations and a suite of "protective" support pieces like Psyduck and Patrat to keep my board safer from being sniped.

We had a total of 16 players tonight, myself included, so we had a 4-round event of standard Pokémon TCG play.

Round 1 vs Toucannon - Loss

Did you know that Cornerstone Ogerpon ex is immune to damage from any Pokémon with an Ability, needlessly making it impervious to many of the already fairly weak single prize attackers in the format?

Because I plain forgot that until my opponent dropped one in front of me, and with only one Boss's Orders available I couldn't get around it. I tried to get a Grookey set up so I could maybe poke it with enough damage to one-shot it through Weakness, but I couldn't find any of my precious few energies and wasn't able to get the monkey set up in time.

Round 2 vs Mega Abomasnow ex - Win

I forgot how ridiculous Mega Pokémon ex can be in terms of HP counts. Under optimal conditions, my Dipplins are able to strike for a lot of damage per attack - 100 for a full bench, an extra 20 from Lilligant's Sunny Day Ability, another 50 from Maximum Belt, and if I can empty my hand enough to play Gladion's Final Battle a whopping 80 additional damage brings me to a total of 250 per attack - but optimal conditions don't come by very often. Instead I was smacking the trees for around 120 or 130 per Do the Wave, meaning that they were successfully surviving to crack back even after the double-attacks granted by the Festival Lead ability.

Despite that, the absurd amount of damage that Abomasnow can output, and that the single prize Kyogre that serves as its backup can likewise dish out, is wasted on a deck where the most HP any of my Pokémon are printed with is a paltry 110 on Lilligant and Seaking. Fortunately despite the absurd HP count, it only took one and a half rounds of attacks to take out each Abomasnow, and the Kyogres and Snovers fared significantly worse. I was able to get an early lead, and then each Mega Abomasnow being worth three prizes meant it didn't take long for me to clear out my Prizes.

Round 3 vs Mega Excadrill ex - Win

When my opponent revealed Genesect ex as their starting Pokémon and I saw the Grass Resistance, I audibly groaned. The one match where Resistance was going to matter, and it was going to matter a lot considering the nature of how Festival Lead works as a deck, relying on multiple attacks per turn for the damage, is countered pretty nicely by each of those attacks being weakened by opposing Resistance.

However, fortunately enough, my opponent bricked. I was able to get set up well and start putting out a lot of damage even through their Resistance thanks to a bevy of my buffs, and while they did get established eventually, they were at the point where they were relying on the Genesects themselves to be their primary offense. All in all, not a bad idea, considering the combination of Resistane and the Genesect's attack giving them even more damage prevention, but I was able to figure out a workaround, mostly by way of having two Boom-Boom Grooves available to find whatever buffs would work out best for me.

Round 4 vs Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex/Frosslass - Win

During the time in between us finishing our third-round games and the start of the fourth round, several of us, including the Marnie's player, were discussing Festival Lead and a few of its matchups. The Grimmsnarl matchup into Festival Lead is quite favorable despite Grimmsnarl's weakness to Grass, because the deck decides to instead play as a Frosslass/Munkidori deck to take out the bench full of low HP 'Mons that are rife with Abilities that Festival Lead employs.

Unfortunately for my opponent, and fortunately for me, they met the same fate as my Round 3 opponent: They bricked hard, and I swiftly took the game thanks to my getting set up before they could get me locked down at all. This even in spite of all three copies of Thwackey that I run being locked away in my Prize Cards, meaning I didn't have my free search effect each turn.

Conclusion

After over a year of not playing the Pokémon TCG I... genuinely forgot that it really can be a lot of fun.

I won't lie, I think a large part of that is that shifts in the meta mean that a lot of the control-oriented lock decks aren't big parts of the metagame right now, and while Dragapult remains the king of the format, there was a lot of variety in what was being played at League.

If I intend to keep playing even semi-regularly again, I will need to consider running some sort of an out for dealing with Cornerstone Ogerpon, just in case I run into the Toucannon deck again. Being unable to do anything due to the legendary ogre's damage prevention ability was the most deflated that I felt during the night. That or get around to collecting what I need to play Hide 'n' Sneak instead.

One or the other.