A lot of these ideas and concepts might be already known to you, maybe you’ve learned them intuitively over time or from other TCG experience. It’s worth outlining for clarity, and delving into the topic to solidify our understanding of efficiency. Crystal Points (CP) are the primary resource in FFTCG and most interactions in the game can be boiled down to a CP cost or trade. Getting the most out of your CP will be the quickest road to improve for most people.

Every card in hand that isn’t Light or Dark is worth 2 CP if discarded, and if played from hand you no longer have that 2 CP available from your hand. Generally the community refers to the printed CP value when referring to a cards cost. For example, a 3 CP Backup that searches for another card is often referred to as a 1 CP Backup, with the -2 from hand either assumed or ignored. This however is the easiest part to overlook when evaluating things. For the purposes of this article, I’ll refer to cards at their printed CP cost as most do to avoid confusion and when highlighting the true cost, I will refer to it as net CP.

Each turn you draw two cards, or 4 CP (unless it’s the first turn). Additionally you can have up to a maximum of 5 Backups in play for an additional 5 CP each turn. There are certainly ways to generate more CP than your potential 9 CP each turn via card draw and reactivations, but this is the baseline and true of most turns once games are on their way. Furthermore it’s possible to start your turn with 5 cards (10 CP) in hand before drawing for turn, if you go beyond your potential 9 CP for turn it will take time to recuperate.

A quick disclaimer before we dive in, the examples and lines of play I highlight throughout aren’t always correct, but it’s most often the correct line to take. It’s impossible for me to list every outlier and match up specific edge case. It’s important to know the proverbial rules before you can break them.

Backups are an investment

I just want to quickly highlight something which I see far too often overlooked. Although you definitely want to be playing efficiently and using your Backups, they aren’t free. 2 CP Backups actually cost you 4 net CP. That means it takes them 4 turns just to break even and that’s assuming you are using them on curve each turn.

It isn’t as relevant now in the early stages of the game as it was in the Turbo Discard era. However I’ve noticed far too often that people play Backups toward the end of the game, or not utilizing their breakable Backups to the best of their ability as a game is coming to a close. If you pay 4 net CP for a Backup 3 turns before the game ends, it hasn’t even paid for itself and you’ve wasted CP that could be better spent elsewhere.

Floating CP

Should you pass turn with an active Backup without plans to use it before your next activation phase, that’s CP left on the table, there’s no getting it back and you lose value each time you do so. There are a number of niche or counter-specific cards that come to mind which are misleading and often over played. While they certainly have their purpose and can find the right fit in the competitive environment, it is more often than not a liability and generally frowned upon to not be using that CP effectively.

Of course, no game, curve or draw is perfect and it’s impossible to avoid but I would encourage you to avoid floating CP wherever possible. A lot of games can be won simply by maximizing what you can spend each turn. This allows you to hold on to options and answers over time. You will be discarding important cards less often and it sets you up to be able to have devastating power turns when required.

If you’re not going to end your turn with more than 5 cards in hand and are ever discarding a card before using your backups just because it’s a card you’re not going to use. For example a named Backup you already have in play, or a Backup you don’t intend to cycle in while you’re already at 5 in favor of keeping 2 Backups open. This is 2 CP you need to be saving for later, it is almost always strictly incorrect to be discarding instead of using your Backups. There is of course times where it can be ok, but it takes some very specific and niche circumstances to allow for it.