NA Nationals Top 8 Report – Wayne Hewitt

Wind/Water – Posted on behalf of Wayne Hewitt

About Me

I thought it might be nice to briefly go over my history with the game so far, to help to explain the choices I made in deck construction and plays made throughout the weekend. If you want to skip directly to the deck info, scroll down below!

At the beginning of Opus I my first deck of choice was Mono Lightning, mostly because it was awesome to be able to field Ramza and Thunder God Cid , but also because it felt like Lightning back then had the most cohesive synergy with itself as a mono-colored deck – you had your Maqui , you had your Onion Knight that could chain off of Cid or Gilgamesh , etcetera. Those were good times – nowadays there’s a thousand and one things that could take Cid out instantly.

For a secondary deck, I dabbled in Wind/Water and spend many a game trying to figure out how NOT to get color-screwed. I enjoyed using Geomancers to peek for my many EX Bursts, and I enjoyed the gains from cards like Bartz and Hope – to this day, I’m the only person I know of who has actually managed to USE the Hope -> Alexander combo.

But I didn’t have as much success as with Mono Lightning, so it went on the backburner

Opus II brings good tidings – not only did a local playgroup appear in my hometown, but Lightning got major power boosts all across the board via Al-Cid , Edea , etcetera. I would spend weeks alternating between Mono Lightning and some random two-colored brew (my favourite being a Water/Ice Shelke brew). Mono Lightning did incredibly well when it wasn’t dying to turn two Xande ! I didn’t see any cards that made me want to go back to playing Wind/Water, although I was happy with what Water got in support from Opus II.

Several months pass and Opus III comes along – suddenly my Mono Lightning isn’t cutting it anymore! Xande is still being Xande and Earth’s also getting beefier bodies. Aerith negates about two-thirds of my Backups, and Minwu is seeing a resurgence since a lot of people are playing the FF9 Water style of decks. I tried adding additional cards that lower power, such as Black Waltz 3 and Kain , but even those didn’t seem to be enough…

It was at work one day, where I would have crises of deck faith in between all the working, when I receive a message from Bearded Collectibles saying I had won a flight to NA Continentals – crisis over, let’s build something that other people have proven to be good. Water/Wind looked popular at the time, so I decided to revisit it, testing online over the next month and a half until I was comfortable enough to trade for what I needed to complete the finalized deck.

That deck eventually became…

Deck Information

Forwards (24)

3x [1-199S] Paine

3x [1-216S] Wakka

3x [2-063R] Paine

3x [2-132C] Viking

3x [3-063H] Dorgann

3x [3-129L] Garnet

3x [3-137R] Steiner

2x [3-154S] Zidane

1x [3-056H] Zidane

Paine (Starter) is a good middle-to-late game resource generator. Paine (Rare) is used for the early-game Yuna search or the late-game Rikku search, plus it’s a potential EX Burst and fodder for Famfrit when necessary.

Wakka is the deck’s offensive powerhouse needed to deal consistent mid-to-late game damage, breaking through tied power matchups and defensive setups. Status Reals is great if/when you can pull it off, though usually not until endgame.

Zidane (Heroic) is there mostly as a Wind FF9 character that Steiner and Eiko can select for paying the Wind cost of additional cards during a turn. In a pinch, he could be searched for and used to discard a high-CP Forward of the opponent that’s just been bounced back to their hand via other cards in the deck.

Zidane (Starter) is prized for its versatility, though mostly used for drawing one card at the time of play.

Garnet is our cheaper-summon enabler and one of the deck’s two ways (besides Maria) that it can boost our Forward’s Power, important because most of our Forwards can’t compete with opponents’ 4 CP Forwards directly.

Steiner searches for things! Usually Zidane (Starter) and the singleton Mog (IX).

Dorgann is the full package, since he can attack, block, and/or use his ability to remove. He can also be used to generate instant threat and force the opponent to respond to him being in play (or suffer the consequences).

Last but not least, we have the MVP of the deck, Opus II Viking ! Cheap enough to play along with other cards, and your opponent won’t want to remove them generally. But once you remove all of the opponent’s Forwards, Vikings can swing for damage same as any other card. Plus, they make absolutely great Famfrit bait.

Summons (9)

Yeah I listed the Summons before the Backups, big whoop wanna fight about it? Every summon in the deck is playable off of Garnet’s ability, and they’re all for the same purpose of removing the opponent’s Forwards so you can get some shots in. Chaos can be made safe with having the Yuna backup in play, and you almost never want to cast it otherwise!

Backups (17)

Yuna is my favourite card in the deck, not because it bounces, not because it makes Chaos safe, but because it can negate a lot of the opponent’s cards that rely on entering the Break Zone – powerful cards such as Rinoa, Zack and Golbez.

Rikku is for the potential milling victory, used against more defensive decks. I’ve only included two copies because Paine (Rare) can grab one if required.

Baralai lets you surprise the opponents with active defenders, or (in a pinch) ready Dorgann after he attacks so that he may use his ability.

Eiko searches for what you need when you need it. My personal preference is Garnet/Zidane (Starter) (depending on situation) and saving Steiners for the last possible card to grab.

Mog (IX) as a singleton was the best fit for the deck. It’s best saved for opponents’ targets that would be immune to your other forms of removal, such as opposing Garnets.

Artemicion for the lovely controlled mulligan, putting extra EX Bursts back in the deck and drawing for something immediate like Yuna or another Forward.

Maria is needed to keep all of our 3 CP Forwards competitive in power against the opponents 3-4 CP Forwards, along with the Garnet power boost as necessary.

How the Deck Evolved from Start to Finish:

The first iteration of the deck was a fairly standard mash-up of the FFX Yuna-Rikku-Paine trio and whatever good Water/Wind goodies came in Opus II/III. I didn’t find Steiner appealing at first glance for the FF9 trio engine – I also didn’t have Garnets in hand and knew it would be pricey to acquire them -, so he was replaced with Cecil . Forwards like Dorgann, pushed to three copies in the finalized build, were limited to two copies for Forward diversity. 2 CP backup Yuna was putting in work for playing cheaper Water summons, as opposed to the finalized build’s 5 CP Yuna.

By a stroke of luck I was able to obtain three Garnets during a visit to GenCon 2017, so I was able to test with her now (though I still wasn’t sold on Steiner yet). It quickly became apparent that Garnet and 2 CP backup Yuna were redundant being in the same Wind/Water deck. I added the 5 CP backup Yunas, traded out the Cuchulainn for Chaos Walkers – between the extra EX Bursts and the power boosts provided by Garnet, my success rate was gradually increasing. I eventually added the Marias for even more power, and the Cecils got swapped out for Steiners after one too many break-Cecils-immediately-after-he-enters-play.

At this point I would jokingly say I had 42/45 good cards in the deck, and three filler Forwards. I tried many different Forwards to fill the slot – Bartz, Balthier , all the Tidus, etcetera. It was at the suggestion of Vin, one of my local players, that I put in the Opus II Vikings. After that and some final adjustment on numbers to add Zidane (Heroic) and Mog (IX), the deck was complete!

Day 1 Matchups

Let me preface this by saying that I am horrible with remembering people’s names. (luckily I can remember FF character names!) If you find that you’re in here and I misspelled your name, send me a message and I’ll fix that right quick.

I went into Day 1, and a field of 180 players, with around two hours of sleep and zero opinion about the recently-announced format changes (Day 1 placements would not carry over into Day 2) – all I would have to do is win five out of these eight available games, and then I should make it into Day 2 and the Top 64. I’m not placing anywhere near the top today, right?

Round 1 vs. Jason (Wind/Water ver. Ghis)

Started the day off with a mirror matchup – of course that would happen!

The fun part of the Wind/Water mirror matchup, in my opinion, is that each deck has a kind of figurehead card that you can use to identify the rest of the deck. For myself that would 100% be Yuna, and for Jason the card I saw the most out of him was Ghis . I had tried Ghis out in the initial build of my deck (prior to Cecil), and I was never able to make the most of it back then, but Jason had considerably more luck with his.

To get around his Ghis, stronger at 8k then most of my Forwards, I would first fill the field with my own Forwards and then bounce Ghis back to Jason’s hand with a Leviathan, followed by a use of Mog (IX), then followed by Dorgann to remove it. He only had three Backups for a majority of the game, so through his committal to replaying Ghis it was limiting his ability to spend resources to play other Forwards; the Forwards summoned by Ghis would either be removed via Summons or used by Jason to block.

I wrote down one impressive move I did during this game (at least I think it was impressive); playing Zidane to activate three of my Category IX Backups (Eiko, Mog (IX) & Artemicion), using those to help pay for Paine which readied three Backups, and then using those three to pay for Dorgann.

Eventually I was able to swing for seven damage and win my first match of the day.

Round 2 vs. Brian (Mono Lightning ver. Exdeath)

Brian started his first turn by playing Black Mage , and I immediately began to panic. For reasons I’ll explain near the end of the article, Mono Lightning is one of my deck’s two explicitly bad matchups. Fearing the worst and expecting the Lulu variant of Mono Lightning instead of Exdeath, on my second turn I went aggressive and Steiner’d into Zidane (Starter).

Zidane would quickly be dealt with but Steiner, at a constant 7000 power thanks to my FF9 Backup, was powerful enough to consistently swing past Brian’s Forward lineup including Onion Knight, Edea and Rydgea . I was able to mentally relax during these turns, as I had seen an Exdeath or two enter Brian’s Break Zone and thus figured it unlikely that Lulu would make an appearance

When he had six points of damage, Brian was able to field Gilgamesh (Common). This was a scary point in the game – my piddly army would not be able to break through his defender, and this would give Brian time to try and set up an Exdeath Grand Cross

It was two turns before I was able to draw into a Leviathan that was used to bounce Gilgamesh. After colliding with Brian’s defenders, I swung for the win.

Round 3 vs. Matthew (Wind/Water ver. Bartz)

Another early Wind/Water matchup! I started to fear that many more of my games to come would end up similarly.

Matthew’s deck had a heavier focus on the Wind portion than the Water portion – I personally feel that focusing more on Water is the way to go for the build, but Matthew was making great use of Bartz and Paine (Starter) to ready all of his Wind Backups and gain quick resources. It was all I could do to play Forwards to tie in Power with his, although Bartz went unimpeded by me for a while.

My win for this matchup all came down to serendipitous luck – with my Yuna backup out, I was able to play two consecutive Chaos Walkers to remove all his Forwards and swing for damage. On Matthew’s next turn he played Balthier and Warrior of Light . On MY next turn I drew into one Leviathan, and after playing a Paine (Starter) I was then able to draw into a SECOND Leviathan. Bouncing both his Forwards, I was able to swing unimpeded for the seven damage needed to win.

Round 4 vs. Joe (Ice/Wind ver. Chocobos)

AKA the guy who ended up winning the whole entire kit and kaboodle!

Joe’s first turn was spent playing Zargabaath into a Dorgann, which I’ll probably see in my nightmares from now on. Early usage of Yuna and two Chaos Walkers eventually took care of that and another Dorgann, while Zargabaath was able to deal early damage.

Fortunately for me, Joe did not seem to be able to draw many Backups during the match. He was able to play a number of Forwards such as Seven , Izana and Black Chocobo , but none of them were able to match my Forwards in power.

The turning point in the match came when Joe had taken around five-six damage and I had taken three. After casting Shiva to dull my two ready Forwards, Joe’s four Forwards would be able to swing uninterrupted for game! Using my Garnet’s ability I was able to emergency Famfrit his first attacker, the Black Chocobo.

On my next turn I swung with all my Forwards and Joe was forced to block with all of them. With no resources available to him, I narrowly snatched victory from the chocobo feathers of defeat. (If only this had been one of my Top 8 matches!)

Round 5 vs. Kyle (Mono Water)

This was a slower battle compared to the ones that had previously occurred. With Backup Wakka in play, Kyle’s Forwards were too strong to approach until I was able to play a Maria later in the match. At this point, we both had many Backups and many resources with which to go to war.

The key turning point in the match seemed to occur after Kyle played Cloud of Darkness . With my Backup Yuna out, once Cloud was broken it was immediately removed from the game. Several turns later, when Kyle had his Lenna out and attempted to Arise someone, he was not able to select this crucial Cloud of Darkness.

My final turns followed the same general formula: I would cast a Summon that would remove Kyle’s biggest threat at the time (usually his 9000 power Knights ). With Garnet’s power boost, my 9000 power Forwards would attack past or through Kyle’s 8000 power Lenna, eventually leading to victory.

Round 6 vs. Bryan (Mono Ice ver. Freeze)

The Lords of Mulligan finally decided to screw me over with a Backup-deprived hand, so the next best thing was Turn 1 Wakka. He was able to get a few early hits in thanks to Ice’s lack of explicit removal, and I proceeded to draw Backups from then on.

Bryan’s deck seemed to focus less on discarding and more on the dulling/freezing mechanics – I hit the requisite Jihl EX Burst at least once. I was able to slowly build up a field presence, but Wakka was the only safe attacker due to Bryan’s Duke Larg.

Problems arose when the Moombas came out, helping to eliminate both this Wakka and another I played immediately afterwards. Once I was able to get a Garnet out, the balance of power was restored in my favor and I was able to continue swinging. I might be misremembering this part, but at one point I believe there was a Rinoa whose break effect I was able to ignore thanks to backup Yuna.

With Bryan at critical damage, I fainted with a Famfrit to force Bryan to use up his Summoner , and then cast Leviathan on his only remaining defender.

Round 7 vs. Korey (Wind/Water)

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to record many notes about this round. I do know that early on in the game I was able to draw all three copies of Dorgann, and when Korey played a Forward, I banished the Dorgann on the field and played another from my hand. While this was going on, my lone Viking was able to swing unblocked for 3-4 damage throughout the game overall.

Eventually the both of us got our Garnets out on the field, and we took turns slinging Summons at each other until I was able to take the win.

Round 8 vs. Cody (Earth/Water)

Cody seemingly did not get any Backups, but he made the most of it with a turn 1 Gippal and a turn 2 Emperor followed quickly thereafter by Yang and Ursula . The Emperor’s first attack triggered a Leviathan EX Burst to bounce him back, and then a raw Chaos (without Yuna) was used when blocking Ursula’s attack to take out the Yang, which ended up with both of them gone but Emperor back again.

Cody was reluctant to attack with the Emperor, lest he leave himself open. I played Wakka and had him attack past the Emperor for pot shots. An attempt on Wakka’s life was made when Raubahn was played, but Garnet’s +1000 power for playing a Summon kept him alive.

A Vincent was played that I couldn’t immediately Chaos Walker, and he was able to fire off one Death Penalty, but overall he was still low on Backups and I had the resources to play more Forwards than he could block with.

Day 2 Matchups

I woke up well-rested and had time to reflect on how the amazing run yesterday ended up meaning bumpkis today, plus people would probably be more prepared for matchups against me. In the Top 64, which somehow ended up becoming the Top 65, a record of at least 5 – 1 would be needed to advance to the Top 8.

Round 1 vs. Tionay (Fire/Water ver. FF9)

Fortunately for me, my first four games of the day were ones where the opponents didn’t seem to draw very many Backups, starting with this matchup. The opponent was able to play Garnet early, which I eventually matched, and we both spent turns building up our forces. By the time Tionay was able to play Vivi , he was unaware that Garnet would live thanks to the extra 1000 power from my Maria Backup.

The climactic battles between Forwards were determined by who could play the most Summons and receive the most power boosts from their own Garnet; I’m glad that turned out to be me!

Round 2 vs. Taylor (Mono Fire)

Taylor’s first turn was spent playing Cinque and Rosso . I reacted on my turn by playing Yuna to bounce Rosso. On Taylor’s second turn he spent 6 CP from hand to play Zack , in what seems like a misplay since I was able to cast Chaos Walker and combo with Yuna.

With limited cards to work with, Taylor started to build up his line of Backups. I was able to gain advantage through Paine (Starter) and Zidane, and while Taylor was eventually able to play more Forwards such as Cloud and Tifa , by that time the damage had been done.

Round 3 vs. Matthew (Wind/Water ver. Foils)

The first and only mirror matchup I had on this day, and an odd one at that. While I tried to build up a field of Backups, Matthew had a Zidane (Starter) that he would constantly get to replay (and draw cards) because of my Yuna and a series of EX Bursts. Once I was able to get my own Zidane out in the late game, Matthew repaid the favor with Syldras.

I believe I eventually Dorgann’d his Zidane to stop history for repeating itself any longer, and eventually I was able to get all five Backups and four Forwards out, to the point where Syldras no longer hurt when I could just replay those cards.

Fun fact: my deck had zero foils. Make of that what you will!

Round 4 vs. Tyler (Mono Earth)

Within the first few turns Tyler had played two WRO Members and a WRO Commander . The first damage I took ended up as an EX Burst Chaos Walker, unsafe to use because I didn’t have a Yuna backup out, but luckily Tyler had no Forwards in hand when I broke his Commander.

I was having a slower time than usual getting cards out because of no initial Water Backups. While I played what Forwards I could play and attack with, were able to put a lot of Tyler’s remaining WRO cards in the Damage Zone. With Water Backups available, I was able to start using Rikku for milling and put some more WRO cards in the Break Zone this time.

My memory starts to fail me around this point, but I believe similarly to the last game of Day 1 I had to contend with Yang, Ursula and Vincent again. Tyler was able to play Atomos at one point but was not able to target my Garnet as he had originally intended.

Round 5 vs. Arvin (Earth/Lightning/Water Knights)

I was glad to see a deck with Ramza and his FFT buddies do so well at this tournament… even if it wasn’t my favourite Ramza. Apparently half the deck consisted of EX Bursts, which I found the hard way from hitting targets such as Agrias , Mustadio and Odin .

The middle of the match was where things became much tenser. I had to use two copies of Chaos Walker to take out two copies of Delita , taking two damage in the process. Arvin then got the Ramza out and it was a matter of baiting the not-Shout activation before casting a Summon to disable the Ramza

It was a race to the finish to deal enough damage to Arvin before he could draw into a copy of Shantotto and wipe my board.

Round 6 vs. Kyle (Mono Water)

Rematch time! By this point we were both aware of the other’s key cards – my Yuna and various removals, his Lenna and Cloud of Darkness… or so I thought! Cagnazzo , Minwu and Quacho Queen were combined into a nearly-impenetrable wall that I couldn’t get around.

After one too many failed attacks (damn you Minwu!) I decided to go with plan B and use Rikku to slowly mill Kyle’s deck. His Forwards were generally too weak to attack through my Forwards (and I’d remove the ones that did), and he didn’t want to use Quacho Queen for offense.

One sick play Kyle did near the end of the match was to play a Cagnazzo, use his own Mog (IX) to bounce Cagnazzo back to his hand, and play Cagnazzo again, for -7000 power on all my Forwards! This took out some of my Forwards, but thankfully Maria allowed the remainder to live.

This was the only one of my games over both days to go past the 30-minute time limit. Kyle was able to Famfrit my last attack that would have the scored the seventh damage on him, so I ended up milling him out instead with around five cards left in my deck.

Top 8, and How My Deck Loses Games

Time for the depressing part of the recap! In the top 8 I was faced against Nathan piloting Ice/Wind (ver. Discard). I heard there were problems with recording this match on the stream… thank goodness is all I can say to that. You didn’t miss much.

In the first game I was stuck drawing into and playing my Wind Backups (Rikku, Baralai and Maria). With no Water Backups, and no Backups in general due to everything getting discarded, it didn’t take very long for me to get swarmed by Nathan’s Forwards.

The second game went moderately better, in that I was able to score five damage and get Water Backups out, but it was still incredibly painful. With my Yunas discarded, I ended up having to raw Chaos Walker twice just to stay alive. In both instances, Nathan was able to play his Sephiroth for free! It didn’t take very long afterwards to stick the remainder of the forks in my broken, beaten corpse.

With my sob story out of the way, I’m going to talk about the kinds of matchups (including this one!) where my deck does not do very well in, for your own reference if you decide to run it.

It’s Ineffective If: Your Opponent Doesn’t Care About Bounce/Removal

Obviously this deck has a fair amount of bouncing and removal ability, but if your opponents are running a lot of lower-CP Forwards, or Forwards with great enter-play abilities, it quickly becomes detrimental to spend resources to remove those Forwards.

Against Nathan I know that his Serah and Argath got bounced about three times between them, and that did me absolutely no good. In the Day 2 Round 3 matchup against Matthew I was forced to bounce his Zidane (Starter) AT LEAST five thousand times, and he would always get the draw when he replayed it. And in the Day 1 Round 6 matchup against Bryan, his Snow ran unimpeded for a while because I had no cost-efficient means of permanently removing it! I ended up having to Baralai to ready a blocker that was then Moomba’d into a trade!

It’s Ineffective If: Your Opponent’s Forwards Have More Power





Assuming I had more cards in hand to pay costs with, the second game against Nathan might have been winnable – cards like Serah and Argash, Laguna and Squall (separated) are below the curve in power, like many of the Forwards in my own deck.



The real problem was when Nathan had Cid Aulstyne in play. Boosted by Duke Larg and Maria, Cid had 11000 power, and there was no way in heck any of my Forwards could break through that meaty hunk of a man, and when I had to raw Chaos Walker it, out came Sephiroth, at 9000 power with First Strike!

In other matchups throughout the two days I fortunately had enough removal available to get around these big threats, but if there was a deck that a lot of strong Forwards quickly enough, this deck could potentially struggle. I feel this is what happened in the Day 2 Round 4 matchup versus Tyler; in this case though, his Forwards were only strong because they boosted each other (WRO Commander, Yang/Ursula), and I was able to remove those boosters at critical times.

It Outright Dies To: Mono Lightning ver.Lulu

If you’ve read all of the Day 1 & 2 matchups, you’ll see that I played against a surprising lack of Lightning decks. I feel comfortable enough with the matchups versus Golbez (both versions), and I won decisively versus the Exdeath matchup in Day 1 Round 2. But the one deck I’m 100% thankful I NEVER had to play against is the Lulu build!

The Lulu build has so many cheap, effective ways to easily break all the Forwards in my deck. Opus II Black Mage instantly takes out my Viking and Paine (Rare), and when combined with Lulu herself can take out anything else. Cards like Opus III Black Mage and Seymour can take out Garnet in cases where other decks have a harder time working around Garnet’s Summon immunity.

And then there’s the damage-dealing Forwards that Lightning uses in general – Al Cid and his friends, Edea, etcetera. I have an incredibly hard time playing against all of that pressure (and I used to play Mono Lightning!), and again I cannot tell you how happy I am that I NEVER had to play against it all weekend… although I might have had a slightly better chance at beating it in Top 8 than Nathan’s deck. XD

Closing Notes & Shout Outs

I had an incredibly great weekend, and I’m not just talking about my win ratio! The first people I want to shout out are all of the players and staff at the event, including the rest of the Top 8, who went out of their way to offer kind words and congratulations offered my way, even as I was becoming more of a nervous worrywart as the hours passed. You are all awesome!

Shout outs to Allek Pastrana of Bearded Collectibles , who graciously paid for my plane tickets to/from California as part of a contest. Neither of us could have imagined that it would turn into such an amazing run! (He keeps telling me to grow a beard, but I think my sideburns are good enough as it is.)

Shout outs to my LGS of choice, Hobby Studio in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Tournaments every Saturday! Specific shoutouts to Vin (who recommended the Vikings) and Ken (whose constant beatings of me with Mono Fire convinced me to find a new main deck).

Shout outs to Square Enix, maker of great card games and also a great CCG. Every color is equally playable and anything (including chocobos) can do really well when played well! Hopefully Square Enix can get some events scheduled for 2018 in Canada!

Shout outs to all the people I playtested with in the past two months, both locally and online (wink wink).

A final shoutout to all the Canadian FFTCG players! Keep playing, and next year let’s go down and steal ALL their trophies!



LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CM24N1SFJyK1KyQfMKQ90mBycHXjp3Sd3y2Iz6TbkWc/edit#