CoolStuffInc Report – Water Golbez

Posted on behalf of Brennon Krotter



The tournament started with a 300 mile drive from Atlanta to Jacksonville Florida. On the card ride my team discussed a lot of the new cards and where they belonged. We came to the conclusion that Famfrit, Artemecion and Delita we’re the best cards in the set. As it turns out these cards work fantastically in a Golbez Shell. I arrived to this list.

Backups (16) 3x [1-107L] Shantotto

2x [1-104H] Kefka



2x [3-112C] Artemicion

1x [1-103C] Kimahri

1x [1-111C] Tama

1x [1-118R] Mustadio

1x [1-137R] Seymour

1x [1-140C] Magus

1x [1-171H] Minwu

1x [1-176H] Yuna

1x [1-183H] Cosmos

1x [1-133C] Sage

The Swiss rounds of the tournament we’re a breeze a lot of people’s decks felt like they were operating on a lesser level. Golbez with these new cards became much more consistent, powerful and capable of finding silver bullets (one of’s) much more consistantly. I am also playing 16 EX Burst effects most of which are Forward interaction. Playing such a high number of EX Burst cards allows me to play the game in a way that lets me trade damage and pull ahead with the free card advantage.

Round 1: 3 Color Cadets Damage Received 2

This game I played a turn one Golbez, He played turn one Queen. We traded damage his damage check did not find an EX Burst mine however found a EX Odin. Fast forward a few turns I’m at 2 he’s at 3 and his board has stabalized with a Light Ace, Queen, Sice and Machina. I have a dull Golbez, Active Tama and two other active backups and 5 cards in hand. Two of the cards in my hand are Fairy and Shantotto. He attacks with Machina I played Fairy activate Golbez and block. He then attacks with Queen I block with Golbez, she first strikes it down. Then when the new priority chain is started with Golbez Trigger on the stack I activate Tama to put Shantotto in play. Removing Light Ace, Queen and Sice from the game and allowing me to resolve a Golbez Trigger on his combat step. He plays a cadet, I play Leviathan and swing for game.

Round 2: Midrange Cadets Damage Received 1

This round was a pretty funny one. I played backups and removal for the first 10~ turns of the game. My opponent made comments about how he couldn’t figure out what I was playing, then after amassing a large advantage through backups I play a Golbez and Delita taking control of the game. And at the end of the match my opponent is quite upset and says “You drove 300 miles to play Golbez?” to which I responded “Hell Yeah, why would I play anything else?”

Round 3: 3 Color Cadets Damage Received 1

This round was rather uneventful, my opponents draw was significantly worse than mine. I was on the draw, he played turn one Seven. On my First turn I played Golbez into Delita breaking it. Getting Onion Knight, Tifa, Zidane and Mime, swing for two pass. He draws his card for turn and swings with his Seven, I no-blocked and EX Bursted a Mustadio allowing me to break Seven. Then he played a Nine, I draw my cards which are Odin and Golbez. I start combat declaring that im making mime Fire Element and party attack drawing me another card. Before we go to blocks I Odin Nine, after all the attacks are said and done he is at 5. The next turn he plays a Light Ace putting Nine in play. He proceded no never draw an out to Zidane and Dies.

Round 4: Mono Water Damage Received 1

This round was really fun, for me. My opponent had a reasonable hand and gets his FFIX engine up and running rather quickly. I had a decent hand of Cosmos, Kimarhi, Legendary Delita, Odin and Leviathan. His entire deck seemed to get brick walled by my Delita because luckily he wasn’t running Famfrit. Both our decks did their things but Cloud of Darkness broke his back as he needed a bigger board state that allowed him to party attack through the Golbez and Delita I had in play.

Round 5: Intentional Draw

This Tournament allowed Intentional draws that were not double losses. The double loss for a draw is a terrible rule.

Round 6: Intentional Draw

Quarterfinals: Mono Lightning by Julio Mansilla Damage Received 6

His deck was very aggressive full of removal, haste creatures and tempo effects. The problem for him was that a lot of his removal was damage based combos like Al Cid. And I luckily drew my one of Minwu. This was a crazy match because I didn’t draw a forward until turn 5 on the draw. And by that time he had pushed me to 6 damage and I had delt him 0. The forward I drew was Dark Knight which happened to be a 2 drop 9k I also had Minwu out so a lot of his removal didnt work. I played very passively because I had 4 back ups and 2 [1-123R] Odin, I waited to attack until I had drawn two other 8k power or higher forwards because I was not interested in losing to Removal and a Haste Forward. So for about 3 turns in a row of he drew and passed all the while I had been getting in chip shots so he was at 3 damage. My board state was Gippal, Dark Knight and [3-088L] Delita with four backups. I Draw Onion Knight and Tifa Cast both and swing for game.

Semifinals: Wind Water by Adam Kelly Damage Received 1

This match was rather uneventful, he had a very slow opening hand. While I had turn one Golbez into turn two [3-088L] Delita. He was playing a mix of the FFIX and FFX engines, both of which have never been a problem for my particular build of Golbez Control. He just didn’t draw very many forwards and the forwards he did draw we’re quickly taken care of by my mass amount of removal spells.

Finals: Earth Lightning by Dae Han Hardesty Damage Received 1

I landed and early Golbez, and proceed to watch him be caught in between a rock and hard place. My Golbez alone did the 7 damage. He kept avoiding breaking it and I never let him set up a board state because of all of the removal I drew. The game was really over when he played Minverva two turns in a row only to have it eat a [1-178R] Leviathan both times.

After the tournament was finally over, I had won. It felt surreal honestly, I never lost a game the whole weekend even in play testing. The deck felt amazingly well positioned against Cadets and the FFIX Engine. If the tournament was tomorrow I would only change out Magus for 2-116R Fusoya. If you enjoy decks that reward playing perfectly as well as a multitude of options every turn this is the deck for you. I have to give a huge shout out to my LGS The Wasteland Gaming, you can find them on Facebook and TCGPlayer.com. Without them this trip would not have been possible. They have a good amount of final fantasy singles and are a very well known store in the Southeast. Please check them out.