2x Opus VI Sealed Champion Report
 |
| (No, these weren’t all in my deck and I did not receive them as prizes :P) |
Hey all! Peter here bringing you a tournament report during my weekend at AnimeExpo 2018. While I feel that tournament reports are usually reserved for top finishes at high-level events such as a Crystal Cup, I had such a positive experience that I feel compelled to share.
My girlfriend and I have
made a tradition of coming to AnimeExpo annually. We’ve been together for 3
years at this point and have always supported each other in following our
hobbies and passions. We heard that Square Enix would have an FFTCG booth there
and we contemplated bringing our decks there to play if we had some downtime.
Ultimately, we decided that our main reason for coming to the Expo was to buy
lots of anime merchandise, so we left our decks at home. (Obviously, something
changed!)
We flew to LA after staying
up until 4 AM and riding some Lyfts. After getting to our hotel, we rushed to
the convention center in the blistering 100+ degree weather. Starting with our
usual routine for anime conventions: hitting the Artist Alley and then going
into the Dealers Hall (aka Exhibition Hall). We looked at the time after finishing the Artist Alley and we cleared it in under an hour- and didn’t really buy anything new as
we had seen many of the same product at Fanime a couple of months prior. We
blitzed the Dealers Hall for something my sister asked us to buy and another
thing we reserved from a seller. At this point, we wondered if we would have
enough things to do for the 4 days we would be there. Thus, we decided to brave
the 30 minute line just to get into the Entertainment Hall where the FFTCG
booth was located.
Whim? Or addiction?
We pull up to the booth
where we see a welcome sight: tables and people playing the game we love. We
talk to the front clerk (also named Peter) and we act a little coy and pretend
we don’t know much about the game. He sniffed us out immediately by our line of
questioning and encouraged us to do the Opus VI Pre-Release event. We were
pretty bummed we would miss the pre-release at home so when the opportunity came
up, there was no way we could refuse!
SE Peter had told us that if
we wanted to sweep up the event, we had a good shot since it was likely that many
people entering would be people playing for the first time. Honestly, our goal
was to just play, have fun, meet some cool people, and of course get our hands
on those sweet, new cards earlier than anyone else! I looked at the entry list
and noticed many familiar names from Crystal Cup finishers and active community
members. I had never entered a pre-release or sealed event prior to this, so I
knew the competition would be tough and I didn’t have high expectations. Each
tournament would be 4 rounds of Simplified Sealed single elimination, so it was win or go home! I
don’t remember the details of every match, so I will mostly write about the
ones I remember well or that were good matches.
Learning Curve
I opened my packs and
quickly tried to identify what colors I had the strongest cards in. I
prioritized having high attack Forwards and lots of removal. The deck I won my
first tournament with I would grade as a solid “B”. I did not have any bomb
cards, but my deck was made up of solid cards such as: 2x Emina, Kurasame,
Militesi Coeurl, 2x Shock Trooper, 2x Gigas, Titan, 2x Dark Knight, Leviathan,
Sahagin and Rinoa. For the most part, I tried to get 2 Backups out ASAP, then
try to load the board with threats. I also tried to restrain myself from
dropping Forwards and summons for CP as they would be crucial for any victory.
My first round opponent was
Rodrigo, hailing from Mexico! He was able to get a first turn Zell out and
smacked me on the first turn. Sadly, he hit a Kurasame for damage, allowing me
to get one of my Eminas. (Kurasame was first point of damage every game this
tournament so that was really lucky.) I promptly froze his Zell afterwards and
played a Celes. He countered with a 7000 forward which I declared an attack
into. He blocked it, but I had Ice in my hand to pump Celes to 8000. I happened
have Ice cards in my hand twice more and took out more of his forwards. I was
then able to stagger my 2 Gigas and always had one available for attacking or
defending. His deck was filled with 5000-8000 power monsters so he could not
stand the onslaught for long and I was able to take it. After the match, we
talked a bit and exchanged information about our local scenes and thoughts
about the set. He told me he started the game before, but quit and is now trying
to get back into it. He recently moved to SoCal, so anybody from there, help
him out!
My semifinal opponent was a
player from the Portland area. This match was very intense as his deck was very
high in power level and had some powerful Heroics and Legends. We both ended up
ramping into 4-5 backups each and we developed a board state with 3-4 forwards
each. I had a Gigas and a few other forwards. His board featured Y’shtola, Leo,
and a few others. I had put a lot of early chip damage on him, so I was winning
the race, but I felt I had lost board control. I drew into my Rinoa and I saw
the line I wanted to take. I swung in with my Gigas to put damage. He seemed
eager to let that go as without Gigas, he would be free to attack with any of
his forwards and not have to deal with it for 2 turns. I played my Rinoa to
reset my Gigas so it would untap next turn, thus putting him on the defensive.
I was still probably going to lose this game as I had no way to deal with
Y’shtola. I launched a strange party attack with my Rinoa and Celes. He thought
for a bit, and offered Y’shtola to block and killing off my Celes. I was quite
ecstatic to make that trade and from there, a Leviathan draw bounced one of his
forwards and I was able to close it out.
My finals opponent was David
from the SoCal area. The game went pretty similarly to the last game I played.
I’m pretty confident about racing people and knowing when to take damage, so I
hopped to another early lead, but had trouble closing the game. It got to the
point where I once again thought I would run out of steam and had my back
against the ropes. My opponent had a Shock Trooper on the field. I had a Gigas,
Shock Trooper and another forward. I drew into my Titan early on and knew it
would be my win condition as it would be able to break his board. The problem
was I didn’t have an Earth source to pay for it for 3 turns. Then on the 4th
turn I finally got what I needed! Moogle (XI)!!! Wait, that’s not an Earth, is
it? Ah! I had a Mog (XI) in play! I promptly used its S-ability to search for
an Evoker, and getting very puzzled looks from my opponent and all of the SE
employees watching. I declared an attack with Shock Trooper, targeting his
Shock Trooper to break, then activated my Titan to fight his other forward and
breaking that one as well. The match was sealed and I took the tournament!
 |
| (2nd winning pool minus Nidhogg and Aymeric. Super solid deck, happy to have almost every card) |
Oh baby, a double!
We decided to enter again
because the GF wanted to give it her best to try and win. I initially didn’t
want to enter because I thought it would be unfair since I already won. I
didn’t want to play if it meant a spot would be taken from someone else. The SE
employees assured me it would be okay because there weren’t many signed up and
it might have been an odd number without me.
My packs went very similar
to my first win’s. I got many solid Commons and Rares, but nothing too great in
terms of Heroics or Legends besides an Aymeric. I played 3 colors: Ice, Water,
and Lightning. They contained all of my good cards so the deck pretty much
built itself. My very last pack, I was disappointed, but waiting at the very
end was none other than…Nidhogg!! The GF said she had a good feeling I would
get it and it came! I consider Nidhogg to be one of if not the best bomb in Sealed
next to Estinien. It’s also my absolute favorite card in the game, so I
windmill slammed it into my deck so quickly. My deck was really good and Nidhogg
made it super sweet. Definitely a high “A” deck in my opinion. Other cards
were: Warrior, Paladin, Al-Cid, Seifer EX, Raijin, Ewen, Edea, Ultimecia,
Dragoon-104 x2, Dragoon 105 x2, Militesi Coeurl.
 |
| (Who would win? 4 skilled opponents or one big dragon boi?) |
My first four matches of
this tournament pretty much ended the same way. My opponent would ramp out to
4-5 backups, play a strong forward and keep a card in their hand. Unfortunately
for them, Nidhogg was in my playable opening hands for these 4 rounds. So I
would alley-oop, and Nidhogg would hit them with the slam and jam. Then my
opponent would do some very costly things to break him since they couldn’t
handle him, like Bahamut EX or even bounce it back to my hand and let me play
him again (Yikes!).
I spent a lot of time
waiting in between rounds in these tournaments, but when my finals opponent was
done, the chatter in the room stopped and almost every SE employee, previous
players in the tournament, and people hanging out in the area came to watch my
match. I think many people were interested because I had won one and my
opponent got 2nd in a previous one, so it was a 2nd
finals appearance for each of us. Would it be the hungry underdog, Kyle from
Nebraska, getting his shot at redemption? Or would the rookie keep his magical
run going?
I drew my first hand and saw
Nidhogg. The rest of my hand was very poor though. Usually I’m able to decide
if I’m going to mulligan after a few seconds, but I truly agonized over this
one for a minute or two. Ultimately I decided to try to mulligan for a much
safer hand which I did get in the form of two backups and more favorable color
combinations. My opponent’s deck was very slow. He ramped out to 5 backups, but
my hand was too slow to capitalize. I only got 2 points of damage in and he was
able to stabilize and jump ahead to 3. He hit a timely Cactuar on my Paladin
and my Aymeric hit the damage zone. It was looking very grim. I kept developing
my board and was able to combo Seifer EX into Edea and next turn bring back my
Ultimecia that died early on. Searching
for Edea also allowed me to shuffle my deck, potentially allowing me to draw
into an out of Nidhogg, who was sitting at the bottom 5 cards of my deck. I was
staring down Guy, Paladin, Militesi Coeurl, Dragoon 105, and Templar. My
forwards were Militesi Coeurl, Seifer, Dragoon 104, Dragoon 105 and Ultimecia.
We basically spent 4 turns just staring at each other and passing. I felt very
uneasy because eventually he would draw into something that would be too much
for me to recover from. I then realized I should have been using Ultimecia’s
ability during my opponent’s end step to take one blocker away each turn. It
was honestly such a huge misplay and it is a miracle I did not get punished for
it. I did end up drawing my Al-Cid out along with an Ewen to finish the game
even with his grip of cards in hand, I made the read none of his cards could do
anything, otherwise I would have already lost. Hey, I had it all along and just
wanted to make the audience sweat a bit, right? *Cough*
It was quite the match and
the board state got really complicated. GF said I gave her an ulcer. She
also didn’t want to jinx me by even saying anything like "prize" or "champion." Other people on the sideline were shocked I missed the Ultimecia trigger
multiple times. It was mainly due to a bad habit of mine where I draw
immediately when my opponent ends their turn. I have to practice being more
disciplined and thinking of all possibilities between phases. That match might
have aged me a bit and friends on the sidelines said they could see my hair
graying. Unfortunately, I didn’t play perfectly, and I can’t just blame fatigue
or anything else, but I can accept the win. It was a clean, fair game and you
usually need to run a bit lucky to win a tournament.
My prizes were the black
playmat and a Zidane plushie. The playmat was a huge incentive for me to try
and win the tournament because I know they are usually given out to
high-finishers at a Crystal Cup and only for Opus V Pre-Release winners. It was
really awesome earning something like that because I don’t know if Crystal Cups
are in my future. This was supposed to be a casual event, but it felt so far
from it. I play in a very stacked field at my local scene in NorCal, but the
opponents I played against felt just as strong. I have a great deal of respect
towards anyone I played with this weekend, and thank them for pushing me to the
limit so I can continue to improve.
The aforementioned cool crew at the SE booth
The Real Prize
I came for the prizes and
cards, but I left with so much more. All the employees at the FFTCG booth were
so amazing to me and the GF. They made us feel welcome to hang out there all
day and made sure we had lots of laughs as well. It was also so great to meet
people from SoCal, Portland, Boston, Mexico, and Minnesota and to also learn
about their local scenes and stories about the game. People say the best part
about FFTCG is the community and I am inclined to agree. I’ve only been back to
playing for a few months, but I’ve connected with about 40 friends already! I
don’t think there’s ever been another point in my life where I’ve made so many
fast friends. People are very dedicated to this game and are always so great to
one another. I’m honored to be a part of it and hope to be a great ambassador
to promote it.
I mainly wrote this article
for people like myself who love to read tournament reports and any content
really about FFTCG. I also hope that it may inspire newcomers or people that
are afraid to play in competitions to come out and play. I came in saying I
hated everything but constructed and that I was horrible at sealed. I ended up
falling in love with it because Opus VI was such a good sealed set. Sometimes
all you need to do is give it a try. I encourage anybody reading to go out to
any events they can, especially if SE is there! Everyone is so nice and will
help you with any rulings you need! The newcomers I saw play were already so
good at the game and I love that everybody I meet is so passionate and
dedicated to the game.
Props
-My wonderful girlfriend, for always supporting me, practicing with me, and being the biggest
reason why I love to play this game
-SE employees for being an amazing
group of people. RB, Peter, Jennifer, Greg x2, Kyle, you guys rock!
-NorCal crew for always
helping me out
-People who traded/sold Foil
Estinien, Nidhogg, and Hraesvelgr to me (Big shoutout to Greg for the
Nidhogg!)
-Newcomers who already rock
at the game; Austin and Van, this shoutout is for you guys!
-Awesome new friends for
cheering me on; Shereena and Stan!
-Hotel bartender Julian for making
me awesome drinks
-Nidhogg, fueled by my hatred
and angst, devouring 4 opponents
Flops
-Lines
-Heat
-Whack security guard
confiscating my snacks
-Delayed flight
-Misplaying
-Subpar food
-Nothing on TV this weekend
-Shitty bed
-No A/C in a Korean chicken
place
On a side note, NorCal LQs
have been announced for wave 2! I hope that I am fortunate enough to continue
my hot streak and possibly qualify for the NA championship. CC Seattle is also
on radar for the GF and me. I can’t thank anyone and everyone enough for being
so nice to us and cheering us on.
Thanks for reading!
Comments
Post a Comment