Hey guys, it’s time for Part 3 of my set review, this time we’re going to be looking at the new Wind stuff we got in Opus IX? Have any of them blown me away? Or will I just breeze right by them and not play wind for another set?

As always, no ratings, no sealed/limited, no items, fox only, Final Destination.

Let’s go!

Ahriman – 9-041R

So we’re starting off Wind with another one of the current monster cycle, and I’ve got to say I don’t entirely hate it? Ignoring its effect and looking purely at its statline, it’s just a really evasive beater that’s hard to interact with. I think the real killer on this one will be deck space, Wind already has SO many good cards available to it, with packages like Yuri & Chelinka, Fina & YRP already going so well together – plus you’re probably already sorted for removal if you’re running the aforementioned cards. I’m not sure where this sees play, purely out of deck space. The effect isn’t horrible, but is likely only hitting once or twice unless your opponent wants to keep sacrificing 5 costs to it (providing you have a way to get around their forward, probably with a Yuri dull/freeze).

Adelle – 9-042H

Yeah, nah. For 1CP more you can have something like Estinien L, and it’s really easy to mess with Adelle to bring her back down to being an under the curve blank forward. Opponent swings in with a 9k Adelle because they have another FFTA2 forward out? Remove the other forward, block Adelle, gg. Opponent swings in with an unblockable Adelle? Archer/Hecaton a backup, block her, gg. Too disruptable, which leaves her effectively a more awkward and vulnerable version of her 3 cost self. Who is really good. Run that instead if you want to drink the FFTA2 Kool-Aid.

Vaan – 9-043R

No thanks. Even if you’re running Sky Pirates, I don’t see this Vaan getting ran. His other versions are better, and none of them are significantly meta-relevant. He’s effectively a worse Paine by all accounts, as rather than playing a card for free and drawing a card, you are instead removing two of your own blockers to play a forward down. If it was tapping ANY job Sky Pirates (allow us to tap those Fran backups), or if he was played via this effect he could be Back Attack’d in, I’d maybe give him a second look. Instead we got this, and if you’re running this, you’re probably running Reddas. And Reddas is not a good card.

Viera – 9-044C

Viera has the potential to be a really good card, as we know 3k to board is not irrelevant (although it’s gonna throw Poroms into the Break zone this set which is perhaps not always ideal!). I still think this suffers from not being able to get deck space in a Mono Wind deck though – if you’re going for field wipes, you are probably running Alhanalem, which is a version of this that hangs around longer, is re-usable.

Edge – 9-045H

I’m really glad Wind finally got something with Back Attack as a keyword. For the element that is most likely to re-activate all of its backups of off a random EX burst, having access to EX bursts is pretty huge. It’s not unthinkable that Wind could hit a Bartz into EX, re-activate everything, play an Edge off of 3 backups, 4k something, and then use an already on field Yuri to tap himself and 2 backups to do another 4k to get a kill – which is not insubstantial by any means. The backups limitation is certainly something, but in Wind you’re probably going to 5 pretty quickly thanks to things like Norschtalen.

Shemhazai – 9-046H

I really don’t like this one. I think the only effect on the card that is even approaching practical is “Activate all the Forwards you control,” and you already have tonnes of that in Wind (and even quite a bit of re-activation in Water, the element most commonly paired with Wind). If this cost 1, I could see it maybe being a cool sneaky tech piece to bounce pesky backups efficiently or bringing up a field of surprise blockers. If you’re going for an over-extend in Wind though, you’re probably slamming down a free Bartz or a Fina and bringing all your blockers back that way. The first effect is probably going to bounce something that your opponent will want to play again, as everything 3 cost and higher on a backup line is usually a searcher. If you want to go ahead and bounce a Star Sibyl or Gestahlian Empire cid with this, be my guest. You might get the occasional bounce on a Minwu or Snow down with it, but I don’t think that warrants the deck space for this card. Kills Deathgaze (IX) and Ozma though I guess.

Sylph – 9-047C

+1 EX burst, and lets forwards get a little bit bigger. If you’re running Wind/X though, you’re probably not engaging in combat very often though due to the sheer amount of good removal you have access to, so I don’t know if this will see play. Much like a lot of stuff in Opus IX’s Wind lineup, it’s going to be competing for some premium deck space, but by the merit of being “draw a card” on EX (it doesn’t even need to target which is really good) it will probably end up in a couple of decks.

Seven – 9-048C

It’s bad. The only time I see this getting used is to be used as Snakebite #3 with the original Seven, or as CP.

Selkie – 9-049C

Slow as hell, but the effect is REALLY good. Much like Barret from Opus VIII, and Soryu from this set, Selkie is an advantage machine if it lives, but you have to invest 3CP up front and hope it can start getting attacks off. If this had EX burst, it would need to be a 5 Cost, easy. Maybe give it a shot if you have room? I’m a big fan of the cards that regain some of their value when they attack, it’s nice to see effects that accrue massive value over time compared to things being really ETB focused. I could actually see this slotting into Chocobos, where it’s actually possible to grant haste in Mono Wind, and getting that value back straight away.

Chocobo – 9-050C

I have no idea if this is any good, I’m stupidly out of touch with Chocobos and in my opinion, once you get past about 11k on a party attack, any further gains in attack are pretty pointless. If this was on a backup, I think it would be a really cool on-theme anthem effect, but on a forward it just seems like more of the same. Incredible full art though, and really nice pre-release sleeves!

Fat Chocobo – 9-051R

I don’t need to have played Chocobos recently to know this guy has some serious potential. Grab this guy off of Izana and go off. If you manage to high-roll all 5 Chocobos from your reveal, you are then stupidly, stupidly ahead on CP. Although all the extra CP you drew is Chocobos, so you’re either going for swarm or using them to do something else (Chocobo fueled Yiazmat/Nidhogg? idk). Couple this with the fact that this is an incredible Miounne target and you’ll be able to see Mono Chicken players deck themselves like never before. Do you run this over the 5CP legend one though? If you’re mostly Chocobos, I guess so.

Deuce – 9-052C

Pay 1; drop a Deuce ayyyy. Probably okay in Cadets? Cadets this set seem to be geared towards Fire/Wind, and already can double-buffer in Moogle (Class Zero) and Maria, so I don’t know if you want to run Deuce, unless you’re hurting for forwards in the deck. As a cheap body to buff up Legend Ace’s on-attack effect she doesn’t sound too bad, though. Backup Deuce was already pretty good, with Concerto hitting ludicrously hard in most cases, it’s a shame Class Zero suffer from so much name clash considering they don’t do anything particularly busted, even if they were they allowed to all be played at the same time.

Balthier – 9-053R

Balthier may play the leading man, but in this case he’s playing the leading man straight into the bin. It’s like Zell and Amarant had an awful, awful child. You can pay a total of 7 to do 7k to a forward, or you can pay one less and play Veritas. I don’t see this ever seeing play unless I’m missing something huge, we have better Balthiers, including ones that can search backups.

Penelo – 9-054C

Penelo’s not bad. Penelo can go straight into the a Sky Pirate backup/forward as needed, allowing you too toolbox your deck to mitigate the small amounts of playable Sky Pirates in the game right now. Her tap ability, being as restrictive as it is, could have done with having the CP cost removed, to put her on par with things such as Edgar, Wakka from Opus VII, etc. Either that or slap EX burst on it. Backups searching backups is rarely bad, and Penelo being able to go into either a forward or a backup prevents me from taking a huge dump on this card.

Fran – 9-055C

So if you’re playing this Fran, I would imagine you’re playing it with Balthier 2-066R. Being able to play a forward for a backup, then getting that backup for 1 CP while still getting an ETB off of it seems really good, especially as you have a few other ping options in Wind to follow up that 3k that you’ve already dumped on a target. I’m pretty sure that Balthier + Fran will sneak into a few combo-y decks, we’ve already seen that Balthier crop up at a few competitive events snuck into decks where he has no business being.

The Magus Sisters – 9-056H

So I don’t know where the best place to use this yet is, but I can see it cropping up in Wi/Wa to prime the graveyard with summons for Porom, and I can also see it going into Ea/Wi Urianger decks to either throw Urianger into the break zone for Phoenix-ing, or being used to throw a Leyak into the Break Zone to abuse with that Urianger until the heat death of the universe. I do think her potential will be somewhat stifled right now though, as early format I’m expecting to see an inordinate amount of Break Zone hate to try and stop Porom from dominating the meta. She also has the option of working as a somewhat smaller version of the Opus 1 Vanille package, and can be a very sticky forward when needed.

Yiazmat – 9-057L

Our Lord and Saviour. Yiazmat is a big boye. On his own, he effectively stops your opponent from playing 5 Cost+ forwards, or monsters, and unless they are going to remove/answer him with either of those things he is just going to remove them for free next turn. If you get Yiazmat down and they don’t answer it, the game is probably going to end very quickly, especially if you have Rikku or Yuri down at the same time to go into full “Win Moar” mode. Yiazmat does seem a little overcosted (I don’t think he would have been unreasonable at 8), and I think that’s mainly because he has EX burst. But him having EX burst is super relevant, especially as he can slot into a deck that already runs 3 copies of Opus 1 Bartz. Don’t let the 9 cost dissuade you from trying Yiazmat out, he’s a good card, even if that cost does take some getting used to.

Luso – 9-058L

HEY LUSO, WHAT DECK DO YOU GO IN? I’ve seen people say he’s only playable with Yuri, I’ve seen people say he’s trash with Yuri and only good with Golbez, I don’t think anyone quite knows what to do with this card yet. I’m hoping we see him crop up in some places where he blatantly doesn’t belong, but I honestly can’t make a read on this card right now. In a blue sky situation he’s Ark Angel HM’s anime protagonist cousin, but I don’t see what he can do right now. If we ever get those dual-element cards that were previously mentioned in the FFTCG Talk Show, perhaps Luso could be a thing, but for now I think his best (and probably only) application is either as a hasty forward off of Golbez, or as a wincon if you manage to resolve 2 Golbez (but if you’ve gone that wide you have probably already won.)

Rem – 9-059R

Cagnazzo + Hope’s wonderful offspring, Rem is a good combo piece that’s pretty hard to kill. Being able to activate forwards other than Rem is really useful, especially as she herself re-activates at the end of your turn, allowing you to safely attack with two forwards knowing that you will have them ready to block on the next turn. Additionally, you can attack with one forward, re-activate it with Rem, then let Rem come back up at the end of the turn, use her as a blocker in opponent’s combat, and THEN use her to re-activate another forward to make it really hard for your opponent to get through. I really like this card, but unfortunately it suffers from name clash (in Cadets at least) with her Opus 3 counterpart. I can see this seeing play in some crazy combo decks though, and I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with it.

Rem – 9-060C

Talking about name clash, why don’t we throw a fourth Rem into the mix! In the words of Dr. Stephen Strange, I looked forward in time. I saw 14,000,605 futures. No-one in any of them played this Rem. Cadets probably will never have any difficulty getting hilariously massive, and they have 3 better options for Card Name Rem.

So those are my thoughts on Wind – what do you think? Does deck space and name clash hurt a lot of these cards? Or are newer cards always better? Let me know in the comments down below or let me know on Facebook.

Also writing this review I notice that Wind seems to have a lot of full arts?

Thanks for reading!

Esufer