Hello Final Fantasy fans, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The FFTCG blog that has about 10 seconds of being on the top of your content queue before it gets bumped so far down by other stuff that you'll never notice it!



Okay so Opus VI... where to begin.

I guess I can start by saying that there are a lot of things about this set that I find really frustrating was generally disappointed by.

I also think this is by far and away my favorite set released in the TCG so far.

"What do you mean you can be critical of something and still like it???"

So yeah, suffice to say that my feelings towards Opus VI are... complicated. Many of the issues that I have with this release have more to do with what it does the same from past sets compared to what it does new, but what it does do new, I really like.





So for Opus VI, I figured I would change things up a bit from my previous Opus Reviews and

rather than going over my pulls, I would talk about the things I liked/disliked about this set. (Spoiler Alert: My pulls were decidedly okay.)

So what are we waiting for? Keep a firm grip on those Chocobos because we're diving full speed ahead into my entirely unqualified opinions on Opus VI!

Like: More Focus on Job Support

One of the things I really like about Opus VI is how much it makes me want to build entirely new decks based around jobs rather than elements. Up until now, you had your typical support for stuff like Standard Units, Knights, Chocobos, Monsters, ect. But hot damn, Opus VI really does an amazing job of supporting new and interesting deck builds with a ton of archetype support.

The real winners of this set are Final Fantasy VIII fans if you think about it.



Sure, there was all the stuff that we knew was coming that got solid Legend support, like Rebels and Gullwings, but there were also a ton of new archetype focused cards that came as a big surprise. Warriors, Witches, Seifer, SeeD Candidates, Monks, Princes, Vikings... hell even Evokers got indirect support with Cid (II). Cards like Leo and Cactuar also open up a ton of possibilities for fun new multicolor decks outside of Monsters. Hell, this is the set that makes friggin Hashmal seeing more play.

He's been waiting since Opus II to be put into a deck.

Now when I'm building decks, I'm more focused on jobs/archetype first, elements second, and I find that a really refreshing and welcome change.

I've even slapped together a Gullwings deck that has been incredibly fun to play! The sheer amount of new interesting combos and deck engines is definitely a strong point for the set. Going forward, I'm really hoping that they continue this trend. However, it'll be interesting to see if the community will embrace new deck archetypes after Opus VI...

During a recent casual session, some dude was bemoaning his bad luck for pulling a Foil Seifer-L and Firion from his packs, claiming that they were "bad cards". I found this a bit strange, considering all the positive prerelease buzz Firion had gotten, and the fact that I had gone 3/3 in drafts in a deck revolving around the Legendary Seifer. (Fun fact: The original title of this blog posting was supposed to be "I Beat My Boyfriend... and also Two Asian Guys", as suggested by said Asian Guys from that Draft. I figured this title would be less confusing/alarming.)

Another member of that group then chimed in, stating that although Firion wasn't "awful" he wasn't "great" either, and he was currently one of the cheaper Legends to buy online. When I pointed out that unlike cards like Rinoa or Estinian, Firion and Seifer required new job-specific decks to be really effective, they admitted that their gripe was just that - That they weren't Rinoa or Estinian - cards that could be easily splashed into meta-decks and without support. And that leads me to one of my biggest gripes with Opus VI - the imbalance still present in "Meta" elements.

Dislike: Elements Feel Unbalanced

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One of the things that I was really hoping for was that the elements would become a bit more balanced. Specifically, I was hoping that Fire would get the buff it so desperately needed, especially after strong cards like Firion and Guy were introduced. Then as more and more cards got revealed, I felt my disappointment mounting. Opus VI doesn't really do much to balance out the elements - in fact it kind of exacerbates things a little bit?





Sometimes it feels like there are two separate teams working on the FFTCG, and they don't communicate with each other to make sure certain cards are balanced in comparison to their effects. Specifically it feels like whoever works on Fire cards believes that the element should specialize in slightly under cost effects with huge drawbacks, while Lightning and Ice have extremely powerful board control effects that cost little-to-nothing from the player. I get that this isn't actually the case with how the cards are made, but with stuff like Dark Lord, Bahamut, and Bahamut-Neo, I don't think that the cost justifies the effect in this case. I understand that these cards are supposed to foster a more aggressive deck style, so my question in that case is what do they do for the Element as a whole? Is it enough to push Fire decks to be more competitive?

"But once you recognize the secret reason for his card removal in Opus VII, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds."

So yeah, Opus VI doesn't do much to change the status-quo: the stronger meta elements get more support, the elements that need a boost get the short end of the stick. At least those are my impressions early on. That's not to say that all of the cards from other elements are bad - there are a lot of really awesome cards in this set. But to illustrate the problem, lets take a look at two of the Legends from this set - Estinien and Garland.

So by now, everyone knows that Estinien is the "WoL" of this set. You've probably seen the deluge of "LOOK I PULLED A FOIL ESTINIEN!" posts on Facebook or Reddit, and for good reason: the dude is broken as hell.

Garland on the other hand goes for less than half the price of Estinien online, despite also having an effect that insta-breaks a forward. Is Garland "bad"? No, not at all - it's actually the Legend I was most looking forward to in prereleases because of the amount of utility he brings to knights decks. But lets compare what they cost for the effect.

Both of these card's first effect is dependent on the player having something out on the board, and I think in this instance, Garland has the better effect. Being able to give both himself and all other knight cards Brave just for having any princess card on the field gives him value that extends beyond himself. Having to have 5 backups on the field isn't all that hard, but it at least makes it so that Estinien's rampage is curbed for a turn. It's not like lightning decks are able to readily access haste anyway.

Oh Right...

So yeah... the backup restriction is kind of a moot point for ol' Esty here. It's his auto and action abilities that make him a terror: any blocking forward gets broken when attacking is bad enough, but the fact that for one measly lightning energy, he can reactivate and attack again is insane. You're potentially breaking two forwards or hitting a wiped field for 2 points of damage, all for one lightning energy. Basically he's a humongous jerk, which I suppose is perfectly in line with how he was in Heavensward.

And that was before he got taken over by Nidhogg...

Garland's break ability by comparison is much more expensive. Factoring in his S-Ability's cost, to break a forward costs 5, and has an additional 5k Burn effect across the opponent's board, which is admittedly a pretty nice extra. Yes, there are a lot of different usages between the two effects - Garland can use his effects either offensively or defensively to soften up the opponent's front lines, and isn't dependent on the opponent declaring a block... but lets be real here. Estinien can easily be played as early as turn 2 and can gives a huge amount of control and pressure for almost no cost.





But it's not like you's have a way to easily get him out early, right?

Maybe if his effect was dependent on other Dragoon cards, it might feel a bit more balanced, but this is what we ended up with. So going forward, I think the FFTCG card designers really needs to re-evaluate what it is that each element is "supposed" to excel in and weigh the cost/effects to be more on even footing.





There are actually quite a few Fire cards this set that I like though: Illusionist is a great 2 drop that gives fire a versatile piece of control. Cid (XI) is a much-needed option card that can act as a Gippal for massive swings. Ward and Kiros are great for Warrior/VIII builds. Guy and Firion have amazing synergy and are almost like Wind cards with their effects. Caetuna giving a free summon and a permanent 1k added is great at making Fire even better at what it does well already. But is this enough to make Fire competitive with stuff like Ice Discard, Mono-Lightning, Water Monsters, or Mono-Earth? I think come Opus VII, it's going to need a bit of a new direction, but who knows? Maybe there's something I've overlooked.

Ah well... at least Wind got strong support this set.

Like: Less Reliance on Chapters Cards











During the period leading up to the official prerelease, I made a post about cards from the original Final Fantasy Chapters series that I would like to see in Opus VI... and really the only card from that list that made is is Ajido-Marujudo, who is about as different from the Chapters version as could possibly be. That being said, I'm hardly disappointed. The fact that a majority of the cards from Opus VI are brand new to the FFTCG rather than retools of the previous cards is absolutely fantastic, and shows that the game is changing in big ways.

Even the packaging really makes this set look different and special from the other Opus's: The iridescent booster box/packs combined with the amazing exclusive artwork by Matsuda Toshitaka instead of stock images really make this set more eye catching. I dunno... it just makes it feel more special, like this is the start of a new era for the FFTCG, and it makes me super pumped for Opus VII

(have you seen that Bartz artwork that's on the cover??? Incredible!) in the Fall.

Also the fact that the team behind the game seems to be less beholden to the original Chapters cards means that we get some unexpected curve balls with the aforementioned job/archetype stuff. Looks like next set we're getting some Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates and Final Fantasy Legends exclusive card art, neither of which have been in the game up until now.

Hell, maybe we'll get lucky and get a Light Noctis next set as a lead-in for Opus VIII with Final Fantasy XV cards that everybody seems to want. If they could end up getting exclusive card art for Final Fantasy II, why not?

This is the art style that I'm hoping for specifically.

So yeah, less focus on Chapters is definitely good in my book.

... with one major exception.

Dislike: Not Enough FFXI (Again)





Oh come on guys you knew this was coming. Everything I posted before this was at least attempting to be written with a critical, unbiased, and thoughtful mindset, but this one here is pure unadulterated fanboy salt.

So yeah, this time there were only 6 cards from XI. Lion made it into the Global version of Opera Omnia and she's still not in the FFTCG. The game has 6 major storyline expansions not counting Abyssea, and we haven't even made it past Rise of the Zilart AKA the one that came with the game on NA release. But sure, lets make more XIV cards.

Now I want to make something very clear - I do NOT hate FFXIV. My Roegadyn Astrologian was getting smacked around in Sephirot Extreme for awhile there. But in going back to my previous comment about Chapters, there are so many XI cards from Chapters that I've been waiting for, and we've barely scratched the surface, and every set I'm hoping to see XI standard Units or Summons to no avail. Considering that we still haven't had basic characters like Aldo or Naji in the game, I'm really not holding my breath that we'll see the Ark Angels, The Serpent Generals, or my favorite character, Lilisette - all of whom had cards in Chapters.

She had *three* freaking cards so don't tell me nobody cares about Lilisette!!

I get it - FFXI is out to pasture and won't get much love from SE until they finally make that remake they've been teasing for the past few years, but it was still one of the most overall profitable Final Fantasy Titles. Every set I've been hoping that we'd make some real progress with FFXI cards, considering there are so many characters and monsters they could pull from, but we've still yet to have an Opus that's had XI as a primary focus.

We got a handful of them in Opus V, and the ones that we have so far are staple cards in a lot of decks - Star Sibyl, Kam'Lanaut, Shantotto, even the new Moogle is great! But as an XI fanboy, I can't help but feel a little miffed that FFVIII - which wasn't shown to be a huge priority in early pre-releases and already had a big focus in Opus II - got 19 cards in Opus VI compared to the 14 FFXI got when they were introduced in Opus V.

BUT Y'KNOW, HAURCHEFANT STILL DOESN'T HAVE A CARD SO I GUESS WE'RE GUNNA GET MORE HEAVENSWARD CARDS UNTIL WE PUMP OUT A STORMBLOOD DECK!!! HAHAHAHA...

"RIP best Elf dude."

Haa... Okay... I think I'm good now. Even though I have some complaints, I still am really happy with Opus VI and thing going forward the TCG is only going to be made more exciting. So there you have it - those are my controversial thoughts on Opus VI: it's really good. If I've said anything you disagree with, well, odds are you could beat me in a match pretty easily so take everything I say with a grain of salt. What did you guys think of the set? Are there any new decks you're excited to play! Let me know!

Until next time - Keep on Grinding,



