Hello there everyone, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog that will end up getting a proper name once the 3DS remake comes out.





Welp, another Opus, another round of Community Spoilers.

Once again I'd like to give a big thanks to the FFTCG Community Team/Richard Brady for letting me do this again. There's always a lot of discussion about new cards, but getting to be a part of that discussion with these posts makes me really happy.

Anyway, Let's not beat around the bush and get right on with the reveal of a new Wind Backup: Aleria!









For those of you who don't know the plot of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, Aleria is the mother of protagonists Yuri and Chelinka and is the reason why handsome ginger dad Latov and I can't be together though because of her abilities as an Oracle, was kidnapped by Cu Chaspel so that the big bad Galdes could use her as a sort of living battery to channel the power of the Great Crystal and become the Lunite King. So, you know, pretty typical stuff.





The bright colorful artwork tricked me into thinking that this game wasn't actually super dark and tragic.



She's a 3CP Wind EX burst backup that specifically searches out for her kids, and who dies tragically despite the efforts of said children. Hmm... Why does this seem so familiar?









So yeah, she's functionally identical to Nora in every way. However, Nora is a card that doesn't really see a whole lot of use, namely because - as of the time of writing this article - there really hasn't been a spectacular Hope card printed. However the's a good chance we may finally see a new one in Opus VII, especially considering we're getting a new Bartholomew that plays his child onto the field, which seems to be the hallmark of the "Father" job. (Update: The morning I was going to post this there was a new Hope revealed that specifically references Job Mother/Father so it looks like this is actually a legit archetype now. Huh.)





The "My wife died tragically and now I'm a single dad just trying to raise my kids" deck sounds like a scenario from Dream Daddy. Oh no wait now I have to ship them!

There really isn't much to say about Aleria - She's a searcher who looks for two specific cards, which seems a bit restrictive. However, seeing as how powerful the two children are when they're on the field together, she's essential to get access to your primary playmakers. Think of her as an EX burst Gramis who lets you search for 2 cards instead of just Al-Cid.





Considering that all of the new FFCC cards revealed so far besides Yuri have been either Wind or Fire, Aleria also makes it so that you won't have to splash Earth in order to play the only other FFCC searcher in the game, Epitav, allowing you to keep your deck consistent. I mean, with Leo I suppose you could if you really wanted to, but after looking over the effects of the Opus VII Crystal Chronicles cards shown so far, it looks like the deck will be focused around two things: Party attacks and AoE board damage - a thing that Fire and Wind both do fairly well, with Chelinka being the key to that strategy.









With Chelinka's entry effect and the new Alhanalem backup that does 2k across the board with both kids on the field, you can do 5k across the board in one turn with Chelinka's damage boost. That's enough to wipe a field of Vikings/Thaumaturges depending on your hand size, but there are plenty of other cards within those elements that you can use to push for a board wipe: 3-016-H Palom, 7-016-C Bomb... hell, even 6-016-H Dark Lord gets an extra 1k added to his burn... Also wow that's a lot of 016's... but you get the idea. If you want to run a FFCC deck revolving around these two, Aleria is a staple support card to get them out quicker.





As far as the viability of the FFCC Fire/Wind deck, that remains to be seen, but I have the distinct feeling that we'll be seeing a few more pieces of support in Opus VII to round things out. Also it just looks like a fun deck in general that's different from anything we've seen before this. Now I'm kind of hoping I pull a Chelinka during Prereleases... if not just for the adorable new artwork by Toshiyuki Itahana. I also kind of want there to be a card that takes advantage of the "Mother" and "Father" jobs in the future... who would even be the Legend card in a deck like that anyway?





So there you have it guys! I hope everybody enjoyed reading my thoughts on the Avelia card and the other Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles cards from Opus VII!



I also wanted to give a big shout out to everybody who donated to the Envy Games recovery drive, and congratulate all of our prize winners - Especially Jonathan Amar who won the big Bahamut statue from our Grand Prize drawing! Jonathan actually runs one of the local chapters of the FFTCG groups right here in NYC, and played a big part in getting me and my boyfriend as deeply into the game as we've gotten, so I was genuinely super happy when Nicola pulled his name, because he really does work to keep the FFTCG community thriving in NYC.





I'm hoping to do more raffles and prize drawings for Opus VII soon. I've got a few ideas in my head on what I can give away besides just cards, and I think you guys are really going to like what I've got in store for that. Stay tuned for more info in the fuuuuutuuuuureee!



Until next time - Keep on Grinding,