Opus VI Sealed Guide

Hi all! I was lucky enough to participate in 5 Sealed events at the Square Enix booth at AX2018. I was even more fortunate to take 1^st at two of them and narrowly lose in the semifinals for two others. My goal for writing this guide is to help newer players or players who have no idea about Sealed hopefully have more success at it!

The way many of your Sealed pools will go is that you probably just play the colors you have the best cards in. Sometimes you will get lucky and have enough playables to only run 1-3 colors. Other times you may find yourself in 4 colors. I was lucky enough to have pools that were for the most part solid. I would grade them as B to A+. I did see some weaker pools from my girlfriend and some of the other players in the pod. We all dream of opening the busted Legends and having them carry us to victory. That’s usually not the case in Sealed. Usually having a bunch of strong Commons and Rares will get you there.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want a lot of Forwards. If you don’t have over 10 Forwards in combination with your battle Monsters, you’re in trouble. 9k Forwards are key. Lots of these games turn into beatdowns and having the biggest baddies will get your damage through and deter your opponent from attacking into them.

The second thing you’ll want is removal. You want enough combat tricks, bouncers, and removal effects to take their Forwards away so you can get more of your damage in. As for Backups, any of the 1-2 CP cost ones are playable simply for the sake of building your Backup line.

You will get into many complicated board states with 5+ Forwards at times, so you will need to rely on your ability to break these boards and know-how of racing damage and trading. I would usually try to get a Forward out by turn 1-2 in order to pressure and get chip damage. You’ll want to see 1-2 Forwards and 1-2 Backups in your opening hand. In Constructed, you can draw all Backups and feel pretty good that you’ll draw into Forwards, but I saw many people ramp up to 4-5 and brick for turns. I also preferred to not discard Forwards for CP just for the sake of having more threats than opponents can remove.

Bombs

Nidhogg, Estinien-L, Paul

In my opinion, these are the two best cards for Opus VI Sealed. They will win games for you on their own and I would slam them into my decks every time.

People commonly ramp up to 4-5 Backups and play 1-2 strong Forwards in Sealed. Dropping Nidhogg takes a card in their hand and takes away their best Forward, all while dropping a 9k dragon on the field.

I’ve seen Estinien-L deal 4-6 points of damage by himself. I would force this with even very few playable Lightning cards just because the power level is insane.  I think Nidhogg is slightly better than Estinien-L in Sealed because it is Dark, 9k, and generates value upon playing it.

(NINJA EDIT)

It has been brought to my attention that Paul belongs on this list. (Shoutout to Stan). An unanswered Paul will likely win you the game because Ewen has been known to already do that with a more conditional requirement. Paul comes in at 2 CP and is already unblockable. He also has the added effect of milling your opponent for 5 cards when he connects. This type of disruption can be quite devastating in Sealed if it mills key cards or it can force your opponent to deck out in a long game. While Paul does get hit with lots of removal and there are plenty of great Forwards that can block him at cost 3 and under, he may very well be the strongest card in Sealed.

(Dank Lord)

FIRE

Excellent:

Warrior, Soldier, Firion, Guy

Solid:

Ward, Illusionist, Zell, Bahamut, Neo Bahamut, Ruby Dragon, Kiros

I think Fire is decent. If you are able to get the Excellent-grade Forwards and the Solid-removals, it’s a decent pool to have. Dropping a Zell turn 1 can be excellent as he can steal 2-3 points of damage before your opponent can setup.

ICE

Excellent:

Emina, Kazusa, Kuja, Doomtrain, Militesi Coeurl, Shock Trooper, Hades, Snow Giant

Solid:

Squall, Celes, Rinoa

Ice has many great cards for Sealed.  Dulling and Freezing are obviously amazing mechanics and will break boards for you.

WIND

Excellent:

Zidane, Paul (moved to bomb category)

Solid:

Zu, Diabolos, Paine, Geomancer, Wingvern, Rikku

Wind is a bit unexciting. It has some playables, but nothing to sing about.

EARTH

Excellent:

Cactuar, Titan, Gigas

Solid:

Dark Knight, Monk, Y’shtola, Leo

Earth is a bit more exciting than Wind. It has probably the best removal in Cactuar which usually at least deals 8k. Titan is usually a 2 for 1. I am pretty high on Gigas because it is a 9k with the evasion of a Monster. At a glance, it doesn’t seem good, but it was such an overperformer. Dark Knight will usually trade with pretty strong Forwards and Monk is a solid 7k that can snipe off pesky targets.

LIGHTNING

Excellent:

Kain, Quezacotl, Seifer-L, Ewen, Ramuh, Dragoon-104,

Solid:

Arecia Al-Rashia, Colossus, Diepvern, Frimelda, Al-Cid

Lightning is quite excellent in this pool. Kain is a cheap 9k and his downside would only occur if a Nidhogg is dropped on you. (In which case you probably are losing anyways). Colossus and Seifer-L are excellent because most Forwards hover from 6-8k so you can take down many things. Al-Cid will usually close a game out for you or get you 2 points of damage. Ewen can single-handedly win the game for you on a stalled board.

WATER

Excellent:

Aymeric, Templar, Siren, Paladin, Leviathan

Solid:

Ultimecia, Sahagin, Thordan VII

Water is also very good. Aymeric and Ultimecia are excellent board-busters. Templar and Paladin are the usual suspects for very large and complicated board states. The damage reduction from them are all-star quality in Sealed. Siren is a cheap combat trick that almost always wins you a trade. Sahagin was also better than expected because it dug me closer and closer to cards that I wanted (You brick a lot in Sealed). Thordan VII is obviously very good as searching for ANY card is strong.

LIGHT/DARK

The Light/Dark backups are only playable if you have Hraesvelgr or Nidhogg in your pool. Nidhogg is obviously a bomb and Hraesvelgr is a solid card. Out of its 3 modular effects, grabbing 1 character from the break zone will probably be the most relevant. Skipping your opponent’s Attack phase is cute, but losing 5 cards from your deck can force you to mill out if the game goes long. Clearing the break zone is a pretty fringe effect that is only useful if you know your opponent has break zone recursion.

So to reiterate, I think the best Elements are Lightning, Water, and Wind in Sealed. Fire is medium and Wind is probably at the bottom of my preferred cards.

OOPS ALL SYNERGY

Sometimes the Espers smile on you and truly insane cards that all work together. When this happens, you should just roll with it.

FFVIII Packages

I’ve heard tales of a legendary FFVIII deck where someone played a Kiros onto a Seifer-L, then Rinoa onto the Kiros, targeting the Rinoa. Rinoa and Kiros can do some pretty nutty combos if there are good Enter the Field or FFVIII Forwards.

Seifer, Seifer-L, Raijin, Fujin, Edea, Ultimecia are another set of FFVIII characters that do a lot of work. Seifer-L + Fujin and/or Raijin is a win condition on their own. Seifer + Edea + Ultimecia is another great combo since you can recycle an Ultimecia that already died or that you pitched for CP early in the game.

FFII Package

I wasn’t able to pull this package off, but it allows you to have a buffed Guy, reduced Firion, a Maria that buffs something by at least 2k, and allows you to play Leon which is usually unplayable. Guy is already a great addition to most decks because of Brave and activating all your Forwards for blocking. Firion can be close to bomb power levels with the right setup.

Choco/Mog

This package isn’t quite as strong as the others on the list, but it is cheap, gets you bodies on board, and generates card advantage. Putting Chocobos on board to block or sneak some attacks in is great. Moogle (XI) is also quite insane if you get multiples in your deck.

Gullwings aka YRP aka Sexy Girls.deck

I had someone put just Rikku and Paine on the field and it was quite a Paine to deal with. The only way for me to get out of it was to build a board and get Nidhogg out to punch 1 point a turn.

Dragoons

Estinien-L, Kain, Dragoon-104, Dragoon-105 and Estinien-R. (Estinien-R is super hard to setup. I consider it almost as unplayable as Leon without proper setup/synergy.) This might be one of the most devastating packages you can happen into since it would take just multiples of the Dragoon-104s and Dragoon-105s to make it happen. A bunch of buffed up units is hard to deal with.

Turbo Discard

I didn’t even know this was possible until I saw it happen to the GF and my friend Greg. The opponent had an insane package of Bards, Zidane, Hades, Doomtrain, and Borghens. We can’t even escape it in Sealed…

(The King of Overrated)

OVERRATED

Leo

Many people were/are high on this card. I understand that it fixes your CP and makes you able to play virtually anything you draw, but I played against this card 3 times and it was underwhelming each time. It would pretty much sit on the field from the beginning of the game and not be able to attack or block because people would be too concerned protecting it and because it usually sat at around 5-6k power. It would also get worse and worse as they lost characters to removal and combat.

Ajido-Marujido and Minwu

Maybe I was the only one high on these cards because I think they have potential for Constructed. Casting free things always seems good...if you have it in your hand that is. These are also limited by you having good enough summons in your hand/deck. The summons in the Sealed pool are decent, but nothing like Diabolos-5 or Zodiark-3. Playing a free Titan or getting some combat tricks back can be nice though in the case of Ajido-Marujido.

Shuyin

This card certainly seemed good at first, but then the ruling came out that the Forward you steal needs Haste to be able to attack or use Dull abilities. So the most you do is take a 6k or less Forward from Blocking for a turn. Not very high-impact since most forwards will be much stronger. You would need to steal a Haste or Put into the Break Zone Forward to make use out of this. Otherwise, you get an overcosted 7k Forward.

I hope this has helped and hope that it may have encouraged newcomers or new to Sealed players to give it a whirl! I had never tried FFTCG Sealed prior to this event and I ended up having a ton of fun. It felt like this set was built for Sealed and it was awesome seeing all the whacky combos you could pull off. Gen Con 2018 will also being having a Sealed Crystal Cup! I won't be able to attend, but I wish all those attending the best of luck.

Thanks for reading!