Deck Tech – Lightning/Water Knights!

Deck Tech by Jamie Faulkner

Thought I would write a short deck tech on this little gem of a deck I’ve been testing online for the past few weeks. The meta at my locals and generally around the world is all centered around Steiner and Zidane, these cards are extremely strong and versatile and I believe I have found the best shell to put them in before opus 3 hits the stores!

What makes this deck good? Well, firstly (and possibly most importantly) this deck is possibly the best value deck we have right now. It has a crazy amount of ways to gain card advantage. But, instead of saying “draw a card” or some variation of playing a spell for free (of which, this deck does have a lot anyway) the majority of card advantage comes from searching. The deck runs 9 search effects (which is a lot anyway) but from those 9 searchers a total of 17 of our forwards can be searched (about 70%) and 7/17 of our backups (roughly 45%). This makes our value engine not only an engine but also a massive toolbox. It means the pilot of this deck can search for a relevant threat to win a board-state, such as Ramza, which is a notoriously bad card early game but really really good late game. The pilot can also search for crystal point fixing (literally searching for a card to be able to discard it for the correct color of CP or find answers to difficult situations. The deck also has a really great anthem effect in the form of Ovelia, making most of our knights absurdly strong for their cost AND the deck has the best combat tricks at the moment as well in the form of Cyclops and Cuchulainn, the impure.

The general strategy of the deck is to start slightly defensive, building up to an odd number of backups (1,3 or 5.) The reason you do this is because most of your power player are odd numbers (steiner, Lightning, Agrias). Once you set up you want to start searching for the answers that line up well against the deck your opponent is playing. Keep in mind that often the powerful drops such as Lightning or Ramza stop the card advantage train so consider if you want to search for them or Agrias (similarly wiith Steiner).

In terms of flex slots in the deck I would only really consider minwu and cecil to be interchangeable. Cecil is really really good versus Fire and bahamut which is really popular at the moment at my locals. Similarly, Minwu is also good vs fire and chip damage decks. If you find that your meta is lacking on bahamut’s and chip damage then it’s more than reasonable to swap these cards for more value (such as more zidane/Lightning) or more tempo (such as Amon or more Al-cid hits)

Thanks for reading this short deck tech. If you are interested in these shorter style of deck techs but more often than drop a comment! Once opus 3 comes out I will potentially be able to drop a deck tech 2-3 times per week for a while. Exciting times lay ahead!

Author Bio:

Jamie Faulkner hails from the United Kingdom. In only a few months play time he was able to win one of the largest regional events in the world to date and finished 3rd at UK Nationals. His TCG background is primarily focused around MTG and is aiming to continue his success in FFTCG.