August 12, 2017 Shaun Wright

Anyone who has played the Final Fantasy card game can tell you one fact; it's over encumbered with four casting cost forwards. So what am I here to do?

Show you how to beat them of course.

From the title of the article i’m sure most of you can figure out what my solution is but for those of you who haven’t quite got there yet let me explain, Who do you think is the strongest forwards around? Cloud? Warrior of light? Golbez!? Maybe even Rikku(but you're pushing it) yes all these are powerful forwards each with their own archetypes built around them, but the one thing they have in common and what i see as the crux to their downfall.

They cost more than 3.

May I present your saviour:

Now this may look inconceivable at first, 5 backups, almost no legendaries and only enough removal to take care of 1 maybe 2 forwards, but the most confusing part of all of this, is that it works.

So how does it work? Well the goal is to beat your opponent before they even get started, some of the turn 1 plays this deck can produce are astounding, it is not uncommon to have 3 forwards in play and to have damaged your opponent before they have drawn a card. This is usually fueled by what is possibly the best card in the deck; Gadot. Just having the possibility of Gadot pulling in a turn 1 Tifa already gives this deck an advantage in most matchups and that's to say nothing of a possible follow up play.

But of course we have to give up something in return for being able to ambush our opponents this way and this is unfortunately power. Most of our units will be out sized almost instantly with no hope in a heads up fight. We don’t even get the choice to play this way so we have to race. Unfortunately for our opponent it’s usually too late by the time they figure that out, often i have dealt the other player at least 3 damage before they start to adjust their game plan. If it wasn't clear, starting a race 10 paces behind the other runners is not the recommended strategy.

This deck is trying to run around our enemies, not through them. This is accomplished using the evasive cards such as Edge or Tsukinowa who can only be blocked by lower costing forwards or by giving them no option to block through Zemus and Black Chocobo, combining this with ways to activate your Zemus again such as Vaan or Oracle gives you some pretty big guns to end a game outta nowhere.

Some of you maybe thinking “But Zemus costs the same as Cloud, i thought this deck was supposed to be playing cheaper.” and to that i say. Well observed, although the Zemus is a great way to win it is pricey, often forcing us to use up many resources and doesn't impact the turn it comes down, however a deck like this needs “reach.” Some way to finish the game once we have them down to 2 damage remaining, something to make sure victory never escapes. My answer to this is.

Shemhazai, the Whisperer. Shemhazai is an excellent tool as the deck runs only 1 forward costing over 2CP, meaning many times this cards reads as 1CP “Your forwards cannot be blocked this turn.” Now if any of you tell me you would not play that card then you're in the wrong game. Now don't mistake me this is not a perfect plan and can be foiled by your opponent playing viking turn 1 but that is why we run Zell, being able to make their last hope unable to block that turn is a joy i’m not sure i can describe.

I could continue to explain the many nuances that make this list special, but don’t take my word for it, try it yourself at the very least that i can say about this deck is it’s a lot of fun and although i’m not a huge fan of using the price as an excuse, it is fairly cheap. Heck on last look it was possible to foil this entire thing out for just shy of £80. So i would give it a try, you never know you might like brutalizing your friends.

Stay Aggressive out there!

Jacob