The First Good Combo Mill Deck

Almost a month after the launch of Opus 5, I am here with a short writeup to showcase the coolest deck in Final Fantasy TCG; a deck that just might bring us a new way to play the game. I am referring, of course, to Shido's 3rd/4th place 'Wind/Earth' Mill deck from the Kobe Masters, though it could just as easily be called something like Leyak Mill. If you are unfamiliar with the decklist you can find an FFDecks link here. If you are in a stupor after looking at the crazy color assortment on the screen in front of you, you're not alone. The deck is probably the furthest thing from intuitive you could imagine.

The fundamental idea is to abuse Urianger and Leyak in tandem to allow you to play both proactively and reactively at the same time, all of the time. You can swing with almost all of your Forwards and tap out every turn while still retaining the ability to play powerful reactive cards like Phoenix (Hero and Legend) and Diabolos. Phoenix revives your Urianger, and Urianger will bring back the Leyak, completing a cycle and usually netting you a combat trick, Forward removal, or just allowing you to push for damage aggressively another turn. This opens up a combo-control playstyle new to Final Fantasy TCG, and is very exciting.

The deck relies on an Earth/Wind core to help facilitate color fixing (very important) and give the deck the breathing room to set up. Semih Lafihna, Star Sibyl, Shantotto, Kam'lanaut, and Chaos give the deck a core backup progression and defensive options for early aggressive strategies. Dadaluma and Barbariccia give the deck some mid-level removal, both comboing very well with Cactuar, which assists in ping damage that can be piled on multiple instances with Leyak.

The final piece of the puzzle is our good old friend Rikku H. Without Rikku H, we will lose on deck out a pretty good amount of the time. We do a lot of drawing and searching (see Star Sibyl, Kam'lanaut, Kefka, Leyak) and go through our deck at a pretty aggressive deck. But, since we leave our mana open a lot of the time and play a reactive game on the back of Leyak, we can force our opponent to go to deckout a pretty good amount of the time, and mill 2 or 3 cards in a single turn fairly often.

Living to your combo is your biggest priority in the early game and midgame. You'll often find that this is where Dadaluma earns his 3-of, since he can keep attackers at bay for a turn or two while you continue to develop backups, or even clear Forwards and put in you a small lead if you've developed Cactuars. You'll also want to find your color-fixer either by playing a Shantotto at some point or Kam'lanaut searching out your Chaos. Getting to 5 backups with a color-fixer is your biggest priority. It is almost never a mistake to forgo otherwise important combo pieces like Cactuar, Phoenix, or even Calbrena to get your 4th and 5th backups down 1 turn sooner.
If you've successfully weathered the storm you should be sitting on 5 Backups, with 3-5 cards in hand, and hopefully have a Forward (or Calbrena) and a Cactuar (or two). Obviously we won't have all of this every game, but this is the kind of boardstate we hope to achieve by the time we have about 25 cards left in deck. This is when you can really start playing the game the way you want to. At this point, Calbrena represents an eternal attacker/blocker against most matchups and can be paid for as both every time we Leyak.
As long as you have a Leyak out you can tap out every turn developing Forwards, activating Calbrena, removing opposing Forwards with a proactive Phoenix, milling with Rikku, or re-tooling your Backups. If you don't, you can often make a small play (develop another Cactuar) and simply pass the turn, content to get a little bit closer to deckout with a Rikku mill on an unchanging boardstate that they are forced to be the aggressor in. Put in a list of options like this, it may feel like the combo portion of the game is the easiest, and while it certainly can be (especially when you crush midrange matchups with a massive card advantage) it can also lead to some of the most painstakingly complex boardstates I've ever experienced in Final Fantasy. Dismantling a Mono Water Monster board or trying to play around Hecatoncheirs in the Mono Earth matchup can be really complex when you're dealing with incremental damage over multiple Leyaks with Diabolos or Phoenix, and requires a lot of forethought. Now that I've sung the deck's praises, let me talk a little bit about some of the things you wanna look out for if you're playing this deck or find yourself paired up against it.

The deck has many active components and while that serves in making it a force to be reckoned with, it also means there are a lot of small things that can be pretty irritating to play around. First of all, you're relying heavily on recurring cards from your Break Zone with Phoenix and Urianger, meaning that Yuna H and potentially Enuo can really a blow a game out even if you're being careful with your Leyaks. Additionally, Cactuar pings backed by Barbariccia, Dadaluma, and Diabolos are pretty crucial, meaning that elemental boosters and Minwu can block a lot of your pseudo-removal. Our natural counter-measure for this is Archer, but it's still something you should keep in mind when you play matchups with Minwu.
While it seems innocuous enough, instant speed removal (like Magus, Cactuar pings, or Tonberries) on your Urianger mean that you won't control a Scion when Urianger resolves, so his effect will fizzle. This can be particularly annoying and is probably one of the easiest counterplays available against the deck, so it is important to keep in mind on both sides of the matchup. As a couple of small particular cards to look out for, The Emperor can turn off about 70% of your engine and Clione can shut off the remaining 30%, so keeping multiple Summons to fight through the duo is very, very important.

I've received quite a few quips while playing this deck on OCTGN over the past week or so, a good chunk of which boil down to "this deck loses so hard to Minwu" when I clear a board with ping or "The Emperor shuts off the entire deck" when I mill someone out and Calbrena every turn. These are fundamental misunderstandings of the deck's weaknesses and are just easy excuses to make when you lose in a particularly frustrating fashion. The Leyak Mill deck's primary strength lies in it's versatility against a variety of strategies and ability to adjust to the meta. If the meta revolved around strategies that play Minwu and Yuna-H we could easily add in Hecatoncheir over the Asura and the 3rd copy of Cactuar to help mitigate those matchups. If The Emperor was a staple in every deck we could switch over to a more Lightning-heavy version of the deck with Odins and Raidens instead of Diabolos, or simply splash a couple copies of 4 CP Bahamut.

I want to note that I don't think that this deck is without weakness, just that the weakness seems to be fundmentally misunderstood by intermediate players. The deck's single biggest weakness is that it's a multicolor deck. Sometimes we struggle to stabilize against aggressive strategies like Shelke, Chocobos, and Lightning/Fire Haste because there are a limited number of turns to draw Star Sibyl and Shantotto. Sometimes we play against Opus 3 Edward and are forced to discard cards every turn. Sometimes we draw all of our off-color cards and we brick. If we play Bo3, sometimes our opponent is going to slow play and we will get a double loss. These things are the deck's true weaknesses. As builders and pilots we should keep in mind cards that can potentially shut off parts of our deck, but we should not list those cards as blanket reasons for why this deck (or any other for that matter) can or cannot be played competitively. They are just obstacles to work around when tweaking our lists or in any particular game.

Opus 5 Legend Review

Hey guys, it's a new set and time for me to review some Legends. As always, everything I say here is my opinion and predictions, and I don't have magic crystal-ball powers to see into the future meta to see exactly how good these will be. More importantly, I'm not totally sure where the meta will start and that can make it a lot harder to predict what will be good and when. Anyhow, this batch of Legends are much harder judge than the previous round! A lot of our cards are much more unique and seem to be edging into the realm of meta-dependency, whereas a lot of our previous Legends could be considered weak, strong, or inbetween based on the potency of their effects and mana efficiency alone. 

In any case, I've switched up my rating system a little bit to try and condense my scores into some more reasonable numbers, especially because on my previous one I don't think it was possible for a card to reach a perfect score even if it were the best card in the game. Here's the new one:

5/5 Meta Defining, Can Give an Archetype Success by Itself, Great CP Efficiency

                Ex. Al-Cid, Lenna, Locke, Genesis

4/5 Strengthens Existing Archetypes, Excellent Additions Depending on Existing Deck Structures

                Ex. Gau, Opus 4 Lightning, Celes, Fat Chocobo

3/5 Meta Dependent Additions, May be Strong but CAN Suffer from Bad Meta Placement or Mana Efficiency Problems

                Ex. Opus 4 Shantotto, Raubahn, Kefka L, Onion Knight L

2/5 Relatively Tight Niche Use Cards

                Ex. Marche, Zangetsu, Hauyn, Umaro

1/5 Suffers from Noticeable/Severe Mana Efficiency Problems or Unclear Usage

                Ex. Ezel, Doned, Quina

Palom – 2/5

When Palom enters the Field, if you control Card Name Porom, draw 1 card.

When Palom enters the field, choose 1 Forward. Deal it 7000 damage.

(2), dull 1 active Forward: Choose 1 Forward. Deal it 1000 damage.

Played with only the text on the card, Palom is a little lackluster. His mediocre 4000 power doesn’t do much to contest a board, 5 CP is pretty difficult to work with when every card is growing in importance, and most importantly his 7000 burn falls a little short of the evasive 8000 we so desire. The good news about his burn is that he can pay 1 to dull himself and (or someone else I suppose) and finish off the last 1000 to hit that 8000 mark, though this is really expensive when looked at all together. This is why having a Porom to get the Auto Ability draw will be very important as to how good this card can realistically be. We’ll get to the Porom Legend in a bit, but forcing yourself Palom/Porom slots in the Fire/Water archetype is honestly asking for a lot, and I’m not really sold on its competitive viability as a decktype. 

Additionally, Palom/Porom decks necessarily require a lot of cards with the same name, and neither of the Legends introduced into this set have S abilities to fully utilize this downside, making it difficult to think about this deck over a long tournament format. However, this does mean we have a wide variety of options in supporting this card, the 1 Cost Palom being the obvious way to combo burn or damage and cheat this card out for a massive tempo swing. The 1 Cost Porom is nice protection to aid the viability of the combo and can be sac’d off later for the Legend Porom to avoid being useless. Still, the additional copies you draw are nothing but vanilla CP and the number of slots this engine will take is hard to gloss over.  

Phoenix – 4/5

Choose 1 Forward of cost 3 or less in your Break Zone and up to 1 Forward opponent controls. Play the former onto the field dull and deal the latter 8000 damage.

Bahamut R, but you also get to play a 3 Cost Forward from your Break Zone. This is a really, really strong card that has a lot of implications on the coming meta. First and foremost, we’re hitting 8000 on a CP efficient Summon (read: does more than just break even). Let me explain: we can trade with 4 Cost 8000 Forwards and generate a +2 net CP retrieving the 3 Cost Forward without actually losing a card from our hand that would be the Forward. This effect would be quite solid if activated in the Main Phase, but at the risk of being painfully obvious, because this card is a Summon we can do all sorts of shenanigans during our opponent’s turn or during our own battle phase. Clearing attackers  and being able to use CIP Auto Abilities of 3 CP Forwards on your opponent's turn is nothing to turn your nose up at. There is so much potential for this card, and because it has no elemental restriction there are TONS of amazing targets both inherent in Fire and in your supplementary Element, if present, alike. 

The card’s primary weakness is that it’s 7 CP. 7 CP is a lot and if you commit that much early in the game, your better hope that your Phoenix play and existing board are going to get you there because you don’t really have a lot of options coming up without waiting a couple of turns. In the mid-late game, the amount of options your opponent can have to reduce the effectiveness (or potentially negate) Phoenix increases and removing an on-curve 8000 Forward is not as impactful. Additionally, Phoenix is only as powerful as the removal it can facilitate; if Phoenix can buy back its CP cost from the opponent’s resource pool (in terms of exchanged CP payed) then it’s fantastic, but if the 8000 burn or the CIP of the 3 drop you bring back doesn’t sweeten the deal the card doesn’t really do anything.

The Emperor – 3/5

When The Emperor enters the field, you may pay (1). If you do so, your opponent discards 1 card from his/her hand.

When your opponent draws a card outside of his/her Draw Phase, choose 1 Forward opponent controls. Dull it and Freeze it.

This card got shit on a lot on social media, but I don’t think it’s quite as bad as it’s getting a wrap for. The option to Overload and force a discard is nice, bringing him down to a net 4 CP 7000. So the question we should ask ourselves is “Would I play a net 4 CP 7000 with this effect?” The answer is probably no, at least not in an undefined meta like the ones we walk into at the launch of every new set. But I would not be surprised if we saw The Emperor sliding his way into decks designed to counter an existing meta that is either reliant on draw or runs a lot of incidental draw that makes it difficult to play against. Only time can tell if he will be potent, but he’s not my go-to pick, more like a nice option that I feel good about having in the long term. 
But let me tell you, in the long term I feel really good about having this card. To me this kind of solidifies the idea that we will never see Final Fantasy TCG devolve into a 'draw pass' game, and that the tempo, board-centric approach that really separates this game from Magic is here to stay. 

Orphan – 4/5

When Orphan enters the field, choose up to 2 Forward opponent controls. Dull them. If you control 5 or more Ice Characters, Freeze them also.

When Orphan attacks, choose 1 Forward opponent controls. Freeze it.

One of the only Legends we didn’t see until the first pre-releases revealed the full spoiler list, Orphan is a heavyweight. Orphan is essentially 9000 Power CIP Shiva, which is really, really strong. 2 CP will often be bought back immediately by opening up a path to swing with Genesis, and can be thought of a net 6 CP 9000 provided you can do so. In Mono Ice and other heavy-Ice variants (Wind/Ice primarily) Orphan will often also freeze the two dull targets, but it doesn’t really change the timing you aim to play this card. The auto ability was probably not necessary to make this card see play as a 1-of, but definitely sweetens the deal and makes you happy to slot 2 or potentially even 3 of this in your Ice variant.

It’s not all upside though. 6 CP is a pretty huge cost and the amount of hate going into high-CP costed Forwards has been increasing, meaning that in you otherwise 3 and 4 cost Forward-prevalent decks you will be including targets for removal like the new Diablos, Alexander, and others. Moreso than just increasing your susceptibility to off-brand removal, 6 CP cards can be pretty clunky in the early game and cutting them early game can make it harder to make progressive pushes. Still, the amount of firepower Orphan packs more than makes up for such a slim downside.

Diabolos – 4.5/5

Select up to 2 of the 4 following actions.

"Choose 1 Forward of cost 5 or more. Break it."

"Choose 1 Forward of cost 4 or less. Until the end of the turn, its power becomes 1000."

"Activate all the Forwards you control."

"Activate all the Backups you control."

A summon that encourages Backup efficiency, that can work both offensively and defensively, and that has flexible CP efficiency… yeah, this is a pretty good one. The amount of good targets for the 5 Cost+ Break has increased dramatically over the last few sets, especially in Opus 5 itself. Reactivating your Backups immediately means you can play this on 3 or 5 efficiently on your turn, or if you have something to fill out the Backups on your opponents turn as well. The set to 1000 makes it easier to use your Cactuars and small power removal like Dancer and Cactuar, perhaps allowing us to make use of this kind of ping-removal in decks outside of Lightning/Wind. It can even be used to just ruin Ice’s day by letting you reactivate Forwards and clear something as well. This card is basically the only reason I have second thoughts about how I’m going to slot Orphan and just slam Ice for the first month of meta.
There is a lot of nuance to how this card can be played and is probably the single most exciting card of the format; but I think it’s also very important to think about how this card is going to fit in the upcoming meta and, frankly, we just don’t know that right now. I want to say that this card will be a staple 3-of because it seems insanely strong in thought experiments and in a vacuum, but one card doesn’t really make an archetype. So, if the archetype fails to stand on its own its possible not even a crazy strong card like this could fix it.

Y’shtola – 3/5

Y'shtola doesn't receive any damage from Summons or abilities.

Put Y'shtola into the Break Zone: Choose 1 Summon or auto-ability. Cancel its effect.

On first glance Y’shtola looks like the card we’ve been waiting for; something with innate resistance, that can protect your board from Auto Abilities (something only Snakebite could do previously) on a relatively light, 7000 Power body. And I think she does just that, and nothing more. When I first saw her I thought that maybe she had the potential to be as potent as Ranger had been in the previous set rotation, but it didn’t take me long after first seeing the entire setlist to realize that this wasn’t conceivably going to be the case. Even against the deck you would expect her to be most potent against, Mono Lightning, she can be broken with Edea and 7000 Power, capped at 8000 with Maria isn’t really that difficult to work around. Earth/Wind may be able to use her to a degree, but they can’t stack Maria and use Carbuncle or other effects in conjunction with a single power boost to recycle, making the numbers on this card just a little too awkward.

I think Y’shtola still has the potential to be an awesome card, but I’m not quite as sold on her as I was when she was first spoiled. She’s weak to a lot of the power boosts coming into the game (particularly Wol) and she can still be chosen and broken by Mateus, the new boogeyman Summon of the format. I don’t expect her to see no play, but I would expect her play to dwindle as the format progresses in favor of midrange strategies (such as Ice/Earth, Ice/Fire, or Earth/X, perhaps) she isn’t as effective at countering.  

Cecil – 3/5

EX BURST When Cecil enters the field, choose 1 dull Forward opponent controls. If its cost is equal to or less than the damage you have received, break it.

Dark (S): Choose 1 Forward. Cecil deals you 1 point of damage. If the cost of the Forward is equal to or less than the damage you have received, break it.

I have truly mixed feelings about this card, and I think up until today I have been looking at it with rose-tinted glasses. Cecil is really only as good as his CIP, and so his value is only ever going to be as good as long as two things are true: one, you are even or losing on damage and two, you can dull your target. When you can fulfill these two conditions reliably in your deck I think that Cecil has the potential to be an absolute monster, and when you can’t he is just a waste of a slot and a premium removal target. As such, his playability in the long-term competitive scene might more or less be limited to Earth/Ice or Earth/Lightning, since these are the only two elements who have reliable access to dulling and pair well with the other Legend of the set, Wol, in addition to existing dull-reliant abilities such as Masked Woman.

In terms of nuance, Cecil really opens up a new type of pressure related to a strategy that we have already seen up until this point: intentionally sacrificing damage for long-term board advantage. We’ve seen a lot of this in almost every metagame. In Opus 3 and 4 Mono Water often gave up the first 2-3 points of damage relatively uncontested to try and give themselves breathing room to set 3+ backups, in an attempt to put efficient Shantotto pressure on (when present) or just try to play efficiently as possible with Mira + Tonberry, Lenna, or Gau plays (in Opus 3 this was more like Steiner/Zidane). Cecil gives us a way to capitalize on this damage that we took and forces the opponent to decide whether or not boosting the amount of targets (both in terms of dull Forwards and damage) for our Cecil to efficiently cause a boardswing and give us some leverage with a 9000 body and midgame CP efficiency. If the opponent doesn’t swing than, well, we got to play our Backups mostly uncontested. The tech can be described as a win-win through this lens, and really makes me excited to play with this card over the set. Still, I’m not totally sold just yet and I think we will have to see a deck built around dulling and breaking dull Forwards already existing for him to really see the play he deserves.

Wol – 4/5

At the beginning of your Attack Phase, select up to 2 of the 4 following actions.

"Choose 1 Forward. It gains Brave until the end of the turn."

"Choose 1 Forward. It gains +2000 power until the end of the turn."

"Choose 1 dull Forward. Deal it 3000 damage."

"All Forwards cannot be chosen by Summons' EX Bursts or Characters' EX Bursts this turn."

While I was spending so much time fawning over Cecil I didn’t really give Wol as much thought as he deserved as the other Earth Legend. Wol is a fantastic offensive swiss-army knife. Need 2k? He got that. Need Brave? He got that. Scared of EX? He got that. Need to ping something to finish it off with Celes/Terra/Cid Raines? He got that. Wol is fantastic because his Auto Ability doesn’t need to wait a full turn, you get it the turn you bring him out no matter how he got there. He allows your mediocre-power Forwards like Locke and Genesis swing at +2k with no fear of EX to try and proc their on-hits. If you need the maximum number of blockers Brave lets you apply pressure, which is absolutely huge. All-in-all he is just a great Forward and can often buy back 2 CP of value on the turn you play him as long as you are playing the right type of deck, and even when he doesn’t buy back that CP he can often force removal from your opponent that isn’t getting soaked up into your other value-oriented Forwards.

Because most of his value is wringed out the most efficiently while you are attacking, I predict we’ll be seeing a lot of Wol in decks that can make the most use of his ability to swing… The one that immediately comes to mind is, as you might have guessed, Ice/Earth. That being said, I think that Fire/Earth, Wind/Earth, and Lightning/Earth all have the potential to benefit from his abilities as he is a solid addition to any deck running below an 8000 base power line that can really prevent an opposing Forward wall from stopping your attacks.

Zemus – 4/5

"(X)(Dull): Choose 1 Lightning Forward in your Break Zone. If its cost is X, play it onto the field. You can only use this ability during your Main Phase."

You must kill Zemus the turn that he comes out. This is Zemus’ primary strength as a card. Zemus essentially discounts every Forward he reanimates by 2 CP on top of letting you toolbox your graveyard when playing Forwards. This is the type of effect we’ve never seen in the game before, but I don’t think this card is quite as impressive as many folks have let on. Let us not forget that if you do kill him he was a 6 CP sink that did almost nothing. A lot of his weaknesses can be fought by giving him haste, either with Red Mage, Goblin, Belias, Sage, or Chocobo and immediately using his effect to discount the Haste. I think that hasting him with Sage is potentially very real, as the CP will essentially buy back the cost of the Sage and often assure that you will be able to use his effect the next turn to continue buying back your CP. I know it has probably become a cliché at this point, but I honestly do think that a lot of Zemus’ playability is going to come down to how prevalent removal is in the meta and how much of it can be used to nuke him into oblivion. The less there is, the more I am inclined to jam 2 of them and try to milk as much value out of reanimated Al-Cids as physically possible.

Ramza – 5/5

The cost required to play Ramza onto the field is reduced by 1 for each Forward you control (it cannot become 0).

For each Forward other than Ramza you control, Ramza gains +1000 power.

If Ramza has 10000 power or more, Ramza gains Haste and "When Ramza attacks, choose 1 Forward of cost 3 or less opponent controls. Break it."

The first card ever printed that makes me want to play Knights, Ramza is kind of nuts. He is discounted to curve after merely 2 Forwards out (Al-Cid combo, Shelke combo, Steiner/Zidane), and encourages a lot of the low-value board spam decks like Mono Lightning are already so good at. After 3 Forwards are vomited onto the field he comes in as a whopping net 5 CP 9000, and with either Ovelia or Lulu he has his Haste and Break-on-Attack effect, which is also simply fantastic. His downsides are mainly that he stays dull to Vayne and enables otherwise conditional 5 CP+ removal that is going to become popular this set (looking at you Diabolos). There is not much else to analyze with this card; he is quite simply very, very good and if you have your reservations I recommend trying him out in Mono Lightning, Scions (Earth/Lightning), or Knights and getting back to me on your experiences. I don’t think he is game-breaking or anything, but I expect him to see pretty consistent play as long as any of the archetypes I mentioned or others have a spot in the metagame.

Porom – 3/5

EX BURST When Porom enters the field, look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Add 1 card among them to your hand and return the other cards to the bottom of your deck in any order.

(1)(Dull): Choose 1 action ability. Cancel its effect.

Porom is a nice luxury to have. A net 4 CP 5000 Power that sticks around to help keep the opponent down after floating her CP in. If she gets removed, fine, she was more or less an empty card anyway; if she sticks around, maybe your opponent has an annoying time swinging without using their Selphie or some other Action ability. The real icing on the cake with Porom is that she has EX Burst, and can be cheated in off of her 1 CP self, so even if you don’t have better Lenna targets (maybe you don’t play Monsters for Relm) you can keep your Lenna engine up while not giving up too much in the way of slots to babysit Porom’s engine.

I think Porom’s probably come to sit as a staple in Mono Water decks as a 2 of for a little while, but I also wouldn’t be very surprised to see her played at any number of copies. She’s a very flexible fit for the deck and can help a lot of your awkward midgame hands after you’ve stemmed the bleeding against aggressive openings or help you tutor for your key cards for any matchup you have the breathing room to play her normally in. She’s just an all-around solid card, and I don’t think she’s really going to be breaking the meta, but she’ll still be a consideration for most decks since the consistency she offers is unique and reliable.

Cloud of Darkness – 2.5/5

When Cloud of Darkness enters the field, choose 1 Forward opponent controls. It loses 2000 power for each Forward you control until the end of the turn.

When Cloud of Darkness attacks, choose 1 Forward opponent controls. It loses 1000 power for each Forward you control until the end of the turn.

The other Water Legend of the set, Cloud of Darkness is really really okay. Realistically, if you are playing Mono Water in the mid game she should basically kill a decently sized Forward with her CIP almost every time, which is pretty good. The problem is that slotting her is difficult in Monster builds, where it’s easiest to build a big board and combo power reduction, as well as the fact that even if you do slot her she’s not going to do as much of the reducing. Maybe I’m just dumb, but I’m not realistically seeing a card in the Summon build or in the Monster build that I really wanna cut for her. I will, of course, test her with decks oriented around going wide more quickly (maybe we can bring back Famed Mimic Gogo. I like Famed Mimic Gogo) and she will be able to find her place, but as it stands I’m not really impressed. She’s obviously not horrible though, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see decks playing 1 or 2 of her pop up over the next few months.

edit: I thought I would expand a little bit more on this card given the amount of community feedback I received upon initially rating this card as a 2. Part of the reasoning lies with the initial rating system I had prepared, and I honestly feel that this is a card with decent potential, but that said potential is highly dependent on the metagame and it is difficult to justify her deckslots and overall strength as a result. What really let me decide to push this card up to a 2.5 is that she essentially can fill the shoes of Raubahn in Opus 4, letting you have a CIP ability that can clear problem cards, namely The Emperor, that would otherwise prevent you from playing the game in Monsters. 
I'd also like to be specific saying that while my rating of her revolves mostly around her potential use in Mono Water, I don't think this is an unfair or unjustified position to take when evaluating the card despite the fact that she has no innate color limitations. The fact of the matter is that, outside of Water and possibly Wind, almost every other color has better answers than Cloud of Darkness for dealing with the kind of threats Cloud of Darkness is equipped to fight. 

                                                                                                                                                                           

Vaan – 2/5

When Vaan attacks, select up to 2 of the 5 following actions.

"Draw 1 card."

"Choose 1 Forward. Activate it."

"Choose 1 Forward. Dull it."

"Choose 1 Forward. It gains +2000 power until the end of the turn."

"Choose 1 Forward. It cannot block this turn."

r/FinalFantasyTCG blew up when this card was revealed, and there has been a lot of controversy surrounding it. Whole camps of people seemed to sprout up saying this card was overpowered and was going to be a staple in every list; that it would be the chase Legend of the set and be a meta defining card. That’s all really over the top. If you get his effect to go off once he replaces 2 of his CP (making him net 5 CP, which) and presumably did something else for you as the second effect, which makes him an OK card in terms of efficiency, not great. Depending on how much he did with his second effect the gamestate might have changed more, but there are plenty of other cards that usually could fulfill his attacking (dull/no block) purpose. He really starts becoming an efficiency engine when you can swing the second time, and is where his use really shines. The problem is getting there. It’s hard when so much of the meta we expect to see in the next month revolves around the plentiful amount of available removal. Leviathan, new Leviathan, Diabolos, Alexander, Ahriman, Phoenix, Bahamut, Celes+X ping removal, Terra with S can all remove this thing in one shot, and the game becomes much tougher when you lose all of that net CP.

Vaan isn’t ass, but he requires a lot of building around to be the powerhouse you want him to be, and even then you really want him to get another swing to be coming out ahead. If you just drop this card and pass the turn, he’s gonna get removed and you’re gonna lose the game, because you just sank net 7 CP into a card that did nothing and possibly advanced your opponent’s boardstate. Because of that, he really needs extensive care to ensure that he gets his effect to go off, whether this is in the form of protection or in the form of Haste. Personally, I think the best way to go about this is as a 1-of in aggressive Fire variants (seems good in Shelke) where you have access to cards like Goblin, Belias, and Sage reliably and you already want to play them. Even then, I’m reluctant to include him as is, since Orphan seems like a more reliable version of the ‘finisher’ card role.

Eald’narche – 2/5

If Eald'narche leaves the field, return Eald'narche to your hand instead.

Paradise (S): Take 1 more turn after this one. At the end of that turn, you lose the game.

A 10000 Power Forward that returns to your hand whenever anything spooky would happen to it. A fine card I think, other than that I’m pretty sure returning to your hand is just pretty bad most of the time. I have mixed emotions because the idea of a card being more or less immortal is pretty cool. I just think that if Eald’narche gets frozen (or Vayne stunned) then your net 8 CP sink was even worse than the Vaan. Paradise is pretty attractive, but I found it difficult in any builds to slot more than 2 without risking some pretty severe bricks. The set seems to want you to run Eald’narch in tandem with Kam’lanaut and Star Sibyl, which kind of tunnels the kind of deckbuilding into an Earth/Wind defensive build, which doesn’t really play well with the S. Maybe I’m overreading it, but I feel like this card was designed to do cool extra turn stuff and didn’t really have a plan beyond that. Regardless, I think the card is a massive risk in competitive builds unless Ice is clean out of the meta, and I don’t expect it to see a whole lot of play over the course of the set.

Final Thoughts on the Opus 4 Meta

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and I figured I’d get in a quick write-up during the downtime before the set gets spoiled and I can do a Legend review (and start brewing with Opus 5).

Let’s start with a quick rundown of some of the archetypes that saw play with the introduction of the new set, in (roughly) the order they came into the meta. I am not specifically talking about any region, but, as always, I mostly consume meta reports from Japan, and that is definitely reflected in the order of the list below. 

Mono Water Monsters

Ice/Lightning

Wind/Water Chocobos (Standard Units)

Mono Fire

Water/Earth Monsters

Ice/Fire Shelke

Ice/Wind

Mono Water IX

Water/Lightning (and Chocobo variants)

Earth/Wind (and Golbez variant, thanks Cid)

Ice/Fire VI

Mono Lightning

Mono Ice

Water/Lightning Fusoya

Tricolor Monsters

All of the decks I’ve just listed are competitively viable archetypes, and have been clearly demonstrated to be able to win at the highest level of play multiple times to great success by both well-known and unknown players alike. A healthy metagame, no? Plenty of room for innovation, tons of viable archetypes. However, I hold great confidence in saying that there are 3 or 4 archetypes here that vastly outclass the rest. Why is that?

The meta we’ve seen since the launch of the Opus 3 starter decks during the end of Opus 2 has largely been more or less the same. A water-based archetype (Wind/Water, Mono Water, in Opus 4 Water/Earth and Mono Water Monsters), a Lightning-based archetype (Mono Lightning, Ice/Lightning), and an Ice-based archetype (Ice/Lightning, Ice/Fire) have consistently remained in a position where their existence largely defines the meta we play in. None of the other archetypes I listed up there have the same level of warping effect on the core meta as Mono Water, Mono Lightning, and Ice/Fire. Archetypes can be aimed to beat 1 or 2 of these decks, but almost no archetype in the game can be built to have favorable matchups against all 3 of these at the same time. You can always build a deck that beats 2/3 and try to read the field for a specific tournament, and that is why we see so many different archetypes topping.

This is why we see a lot of high level players tend to “come home” to one of these archetypes when deciding what deck to take to an event. They could take their sick Earth/Wind deck they’ve been building for the previous month, but their Ice/Fire matchup can be pretty tough if they can’t answer an early Celes + Locke push or a Genesis + Sage play since they spend almost all of their tech slots dealing with the Lightning and Water matchups. This is just an example of course, you could certainly tech your Earth/Wind to deal with Ice very well (Wind has a lot of these tools!) but then maybe your Lightning matchup suffers from not dealing with Hildibrand well, or you can’t put on enough pressure to avoid the Cagnazzo inevitability Mono Water presents. These kinds of problems tend to loop around and around when deckbuilding with the decks that are not part of the “Top 3”, so to speak.

What I really want to say with all of this blabbering is that Mono Lightning, Mono Water, and Ice/Fire (or Mono Ice) have a gatekeeping effect on what can be viable for a long tournament setting in which every win is important. Make of this what you will. I’m sure some competitive players think this is great; if they can get a solid read on the likely archetypes in their area they can tech for it appropriately with the third deck and get some advantageous wins where their opponent’s deck is lacking. Personally, I find it kind of frustrating because, despite all of the cool new cards that have come out, the game I’m playing doesn’t really feel different, and the fundamental interaction we’ve had feels more or less the same.  

“But, eureka, what about Tricolor Monsters? That deck instantly climbed to Tier 1 status and it can totally wreck Mono Water and Mono Lightning!” I know, I know, that deck was a pretty surprising bit of fresh air the first time I got absolutely wrecked by it, and then proceeded to wreck every top tier archetype I knew with it. But the trick gets old, just like every new archetype we see have success. Tricolor Monsters is a good deck, but it isn’t going to be gatekeeping new archetypes from entering the game the way the top tier is; and realistically, the Ice matchup is not favorable at best and can be ridiculously one-sided if you miss early EX Bursts or can’t draw a 3^rd Backup at worst.

This pretty much concludes my thoughts on archetype evolution over the set, so I wanna talk a little more about specific engines that we saw enter and/or leave the meta over the set, what their purpose was, and why we can probably expect to see some of them again in the future. 

Chocobos

The Chocobo engine, which normally consists of Izana, Fat Chocobo, Haste Chocobo, and sometimes 6k give Haste Chocobo, can be really great tools against Water and Lightning, but they tend to roll pretty high and pretty low. In a best case scenario, you get the Izana out early and can start pumping out the pain with consecutive attacks your opponent has no hope to block because of Nono + Fat Chocobo combo or just them not having blockers. If you can’t draw Fat Chocobo or Izana quickly, on the other hand, your engine is absolutely horrible and would almost always be better as another set of cards. Additionally, the engine is pretty expensive for the power line it generates, and so if one part of it can be answered efficiently (Cid Randell to prevent Hasted swings, Zalera that clears a board of your weenies) the whole thing was pretty much meaningless. I expect we’ll see this engine continue to see play to keep the meta honest. 

The Earth Package

Normally this means 3x Shantotto, 3x Raubahn (Forward), and your choice pick of Earth card(s) including but not limited to Atomos, Hecatoncheir (both), Magic Pot, Opus 3 Rydia, and Masked Woman. Basically, we get to play a mono deck while having sufficient outs for The Emperor and an extra board clear. Water and Lightning have both seen some play like this, though Water to a much greater extent. The Earth Package as it exists now tends to cover weaknesses to a lot of universal threats, like early board floods (VI, Chocobos, Golbez), The Emperor, and Elemental booster Backups. I think this engine is going to be one of the first to go away, namely because I have a hunch that Shantotto will decrease in playability heavily in the upcoming set.

Hildibrand and Nashu

Lightning’s new Swiss-army knife. While he doesn’t seem so on the surface, Hildibrand is actually incredibly versatile. He can be a difficult-to-deal-with blocker, a potent attacker, and most importantly, he dodges a lot of the popular removal available right now. He came into play namely because of the popularity of Shantotto and Yuna-H/Chaos Walker combo, which Lightning’s blockers could have a lot of trouble with before his utilization.

Ranger and Arc

Arc has become the new hottest inclusion in a lot of decks dipping into Wind, but most specifically Wind/Water and Wind/Earth archetypes. Alongside him, Ranger has been one of the most-included 3-drops in the game, and without a doubt inside the Wind element. And it’s easy to see why; the card provides a lot of wide-spread protection from a lot of available threats in the meta, since they’re all attached to auto-abilities right now. I do think that Ranger will dip off in popularity compared to the other cards I’ve mentioned, however, since both Forwards with inherent resistance and the use of Summons will be rising in the upcoming set.

Yuna-H and Chaos, Walker of the Wheel

Not exactly a new combo, we’ve seen this since Opus 3 with Garnet + multicolor Summons, and throughout the set in Wind/Water Chocobos, Standard Units, and now Tricolor Monsters. I won’t waste my breath talking about it too much, but the fact that both of these cards are EX really tops of it off, and as long as Yuna-H’s auto effect can keep up with CP efficiency and her Field Ability is relevant in the meta, we’ll see her around, and Chaos Walker too a result.

Strongest Cards in the Game (In My Mind)

Hey guys, Eureka here with a little article detailing some of my thoughts about the strongest cards in the game. I don’t really think that this kind of content is as helpful as it is fun, but I hope you enjoy it. As always, everything I write here is my own opinion. Nothing here is listed in any particular order (other than Al-Cid) and I may have skipped over some great cards because I just don’t feel they are as strong as the ones on here, or because I might have missed them when glancing over the card pool to write this.

Just Strong

Al-Cid

If there is a 10/10 card in the game it is Al-Cid. Some of his popular Link targets are Onion Knight (Sage), Rygdea, OP4 Black Waltz 3, and Zalbaag, all of which except the last combo with his 6000 burn to finish off an opposing Forward. Sometimes overlooked, Al-Cid’s real strength is not simply removing an opposing Forward, but allowing you to develop not just 1, but 2 of your own Forwards while doing so. He is a staple in all Lightning decks, and is probably the biggest reason to play Lightning in general.

Genesis

While he pales in comparison to Chapters’ Aldo, Genesis has made a very big splash in the Opus series, with good reason. His first auto ability offers on-demand Dull and Freeze, he’s a great target for Devout, and he applies pretty significant pressure to your opponent by threatening Discard every turn. A little less obvious is that he is Category 7, meaning he can be tutored by Jessie (though this is off-Color) and activates Cloud-H’s 7000 burn. A very strong card in general that we can expect to see play until his effect is power creeped.

Cagnazzo

The turtle from hell, Cagnazzo really has no business existing. It was pretty abundantly clear that the existence of Cagnazzo really gave Mono Water an edge that many of us (myself included) didn’t expect it to have from the start of Opus 3. Cag could easily slide down into the category of cards I talk about later in this article “Meta Warpers” as his mere existence makes you play differently against Mono Water, but he is not as situational as the others (in my opinion) and belongs up here with the others. As time goes on the amount of ways you can Cag combo the board will increase, though I expect that eventually he will be powercreeped by first and foremost other forms of removal, but also by the amount of cards on the field decreasing as cards become more CP efficient over time and the speed of games increasing as a result.

Vivi

Vivi is very similar to Al-Cid, like they are opposing sides of the same coin. Vivi main drawback is that his burn is variable but operates without comboing another card, while Al-Cid offers fixed burn but must combo with another card. Either way, they are both incredibly powerful. Vivi’s burn soft caps at 9000 (5 cards in opponent’s hand) which is more than plenty. The main counterplay around Vivi is your opponent playing cards on your turn to reduce the potency of his burn, but this is usually a win since you force your opponent to use cards, and the opposing Forward can often be finished off with a small burn anyways. I think if Vivi has a way to be cheated in outside of Zargabaath or Ghis in the future, we’ll see some pretty exciting developments with him, and he may be played more and more as formats become faster because medium sized CP efficient Forwards will thrive.  

Zidane

The most guaranteed CP efficient card in the game by far, Zidane weighs in at a net 2 CP for 7000, which is absolutely incredible. Previous to his release Serah was the benchmark for what CP efficient Forward should like look and Zidane boasts an extra 1000 Power, 1 less CP and can be tutored by multiple cards. His Light Element is generally the only thing that could be considered bad about him, as he doesn’t receive Power boosts from Elemental boosters, but it also unlocked the possibility for Water/Light to exist in Opus 3.

Lightning

The most offensive power printed on a card, ever. Unfortunately Lightning Element Category 13 cards (Noel, Maqui, Gilgamesh, Rygdea) aren’t exactly well-suited to the type of play Lightning offers, so at the moment she is mostly relegated to being used exclusively for finishing power in Mono Lightning or forced you to shoehorn Category 13 cards from other Elements into your deck as well. Ice does this pretty well with Mog XII-2, Serah, Jihl Nabaat, and potentially Snow, but is (and always has been) really stressed for space in the Forward lineup due to the abundance of strong 4 CP Forwards, leaving less room for multiple Lightnings. I believe that next set with Cat13 support we’ll get the boost we need to really see her for the monster that she is, though she is already plenty strong right now.

Shiva

I don’t think this card should cost 2. Shiva’s existence means that to successfully defend against Ice decks you need to have a minimum of 3 blockers (or activation, anti-dull effects, etc), which is absolutely nuts especially when backed with the likes of Genesis, Locke, Laguna L, and Celes with their on-damage abilities. Not necessarily a 3-of in Ice, but absolutely a fantastic card.

Meta Warpers

The Emperor

Perhaps the biggest offender on this list, The Emperor completely stifles certain playstyles. I have been in many an argument with others on the competitive viability and prioritization The Emperor should hold at any point in time, but I think that with the drop of Opus 4 (which introduced or re-introduced into the meta Act ability reliant cards, especially Monsters) we have finally reached a stage of the game in which The Emperor can be reliably put in most or all decks without fear of him having little to no impact on your opponent’s game plan. Every deck needs to account for and have checks against The Emperor; most Elements have pretty versatile tech that can cover this, and his slot priority since the launch of the set has steadily declined as a result.

Shantotto

The OG meta warper, Shantotto is a big fat reset button on the Forward side of the boardstate. However, Shantotto’s potency as a card has declined pretty substantially since her release; she doesn’t cover Monsters, Backup prioritization is crucial against everything but Shelke and Ice variants, and she doesn’t combat CP efficient Forwards as well as one would like. At any rate, her existence means that when you play against any slower deck you should be aware that they may splash Earth specifically to enable Shantotto; we can see this especially in the ‘Mono’ Water variants (札幌スペシャル) that have been so successful in Japan.

Minwu

There is a lot less to say about Minwu than the other meta warpers. He blocks anything but lethal damage, which really hurts the viability of certain Mono Lightning and Fire variants. As long as Al-Cid is around I can’t imagine him not being viable at least, but he is not as potent as he is given credit for nowadays. Lightning has a lot of workarounds between Black Waltz 2, Cyclops, and Opus 2 Black Mage, and Fire can easily play bigger burns or just swing with big Forwards instead.

Yuna

Yuna’s effect to remove Forwards completely nullifies a whole host of powerful cards, including but not limited to Golbez L, Rinoa, Clione, Black Waltz 2, Moogle H, etc while soft countering cards like Devout and Golbez H. The main reason Yuna H does not see as much universal play is that her name competes with Yuna R, which is generally seen as the more useful Yuna. Still, Yuna H can be very potent in a variety of matchups, especially when paired with Garnet’s summon artillery (ie Chaos Walker). Her EX Burst and bounce effect can completely swing some games as well.

Zalera, the Death Seraph

The Mono Water Killer, Zalera gave Ice/Lightning its first footing in Opus 3 with Novel’s victory at Masters Yokohama. The card singlehandedly countered Mono Water and prevented the archetype from completely sweeping tournaments for a long while, forcing them into a lot of less-optimal tech choices like Astrologian, Fairy, and Ashe. I think the card will continue to see play in most Ice decks as at least a 1-of for a long time to come, but it may depend on the speed of the deck and the relative strength of it compared to other tech choices for the Element in coming sets.

Honorable Mentions

Bartz

Bartz almost has all the firepower one could ever want, but he’s just not quite there. 5 Jobs (4 extra) is not insanely difficult, but can sometimes force your deckbuilding into some suboptimal choices. Still, with 3 Jobs he is doing fine as a 3 CP 6k Haste First Strike (we would probably play this normally if it was printed text), but at 5 Jobs he is just a monster, swinging twice at 9000. Taking on extra Jobs means he can benefit from a tribal boosts, namely Arc (Standard Unit Job), Chocobo (from Black Chocobo + Fat Chocobo synergy), Knight (Ovelia boost), and Warrior of Light (Warrior of Light reduced damage synergy).

Llednar

Actually the most annoying card in the game. Can you believe than in Chapters you had to pay 3 instead of 2 to negate his effect? He’s always great to place on the board, whether you already have presence or are losing on it. He essentially comes out for free most of the time, since they will have to pay 2 CP to kill him. Analytically speaking he is a net 4 CP 5000 Forward that buys you 2 CP from your opponent every time *anything* would happen to him. As such, his CP efficiency grows the more you can force your opponent to interact with him, which is, if nothing else, an interesting dynamic. As ways to interact in Fire grow I expect his potency to grow accordingly. Power reduction is his main drawback and the current meta is teeming with it, with (Black Waltz 3, Black Mage, Cagnazzo, and Cuchulainn; as it goes I expect he will see more play.   

Locke

If only we had more Cat VI backups, Locke would be a total monster. As it stands he is still my favorite card and a very potent threat. The fact that you (almost) always have to play another Cat VI Forward before Locke, or concurrently with him means he can’t really shine the way you want him to (being the first Forward you toss out efficiently) at the current time. If we ever reach a time when Mono Ice or another variant can toss efficiently toss down Locke on turn 2 (2 Backup t1 -> Gest Cid and Locke t2) and have his auto ability fire off, we are in for a world of trouble. He is a strong card now but has the potential to become a staple if things go well for VI in future sets. 

Onion Knight

CP Efficient, versatile, defensive options, offensive options, great art, what more could you desire from this card? The answer is if it didn’t hurt your deckbuilding as much as it does. Onion Knight is an efficient, incredibly potent threat which can be likened to Al-Cid in some ways (remember removing a Forward and developing one at the same time?) but just has too many conditions attached to him to really sit at the top of these charts. If all of his conditions are fulfilled (target for ETB auto in Break, Sage Onion Knight in deck, no Minwu, no Emperor) successfully he is a total beast though, and as the number of good targets for his ETB grow I expect it will be easier to slot him into decks. 

Edea

Edea promotes Backup prioritization, can deal with threats that Mono Lightning can otherwise struggle with (Cecil L, Emperor Xande, Warrior of Light L, etc), and has EX Burst all at the same time. She’s just a great card. Her main drawbacks are that she is relatively small and sometimes her EX can flop.

Maria

I used to refer to Maria as the only reason to play Wind. While this is an obvious overstatement nowadays (since Opus 2 really), Maria is still one of the most potent Backups and an obvious choice for decks dipping into Wind. Power boosting is very important in this game (not an obvious fact for beginners) and Maria is one of the most consistent, safest ways to get it done.  

Rinoa

Before Opus 4 I would have listed Rinoa up with the other cards, and while she is still an incredibly explosive, game-turning card, she’s a bit easier to deal with than she used to be and her slot as a 3 CP Ice Forward has heavy competition with the likes of other potent 3 CPs (Serah, Locke, Zidane, Cloud H, Shelke, etc) and Zalera doesn’t cover as much of the meta as it did in Opus 3. Still, she can singlehandedly flip a gamestate on its head and cause otherwise impossible games to be won, and deserves a mention accordingly.