Final Fantasy Trading Card game has been with us for a while now and the games community, for the most part, are a wonderful bunch. As regular readers know we at Game Hype are fans of FF TCG and often invite the local community to join us for an Ex Burst or two.
So in the spirit of community, the fine folks at Square sent us some Opus VIII (for what was meant to be a pre-release style set review but unforeseen circumstances arose) boosters and we invited some new faces and a few familiar ones to help us out.
Now, I know what you’re thinking “Ryan, Opus IX Lords & Chaos is nearly out, you don’t need to show us VIII”. Well, you’re spot on, we don’t, so we aren’t going to.
Attendees of The Water Crystal Cup (UK) in Norwich (Shout out to Athena Games for being such amazing hosts and the whole TCG team for an amazing event) will know that one of our very own made the top cut and as such proceeded to Day 2 and the DRAFT!
Locally, we don’t draft all that often, in fact, while discussing drafting the local community brought up how they’d love to practice drafting so when (yes, we are going with when confidence and what not) one of the local players makes the Top Cut again preparation will have been had.
So our players wanted to draft and we had boosters that Square had sent us (Thanks Tim!)…no prize for guessing what we did.
If you don’t know what ‘drafting’ is allow me to briefly explain. Rather than playing a game with a constructed deck you’ve built beforehand drafting is when players take a set number of packs (normally 5 or 6) and rather than cracking them all immediately open 1 booster pack each and select 1 card from it, the rest of the cards and they pass the player on one side of them, they then pick card from those passed to them. This continues until all the cards have been picked (and that last one dumped on you, it’s never useful is it?!). Once this happens, the players open a second pack and the direction of the pack is reversed, this goes on until all packs have been opened and all cards picked.
In the case of the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game players are then allotted time to construct a deck from the cards they ‘Drafted’, a deck of at least 40 cards (there tends not to be an upper card limit). Once this is complete and all players have their decks battle begins, games are to 6 points of damage rather than 7, other than that all things are as normal.
Anyway, enough of that, let’s get down to our Game Hype FFTCG Opus VIII draft.
Drafting is one of the best ways to enjoy a TCG and I honestly love its presence in official FF TCG tournaments, Net-decking is one of my pet peeves and I hate facing the exact deck that won the last major event several times over the course of the day. If I ever manage to get my Dragoons into the top cut I’ll enter the draft secure that the winner of day 2 will be the best player on the day and not the person who net decked the meta.
We gathered around the table, each of us determined to be victorious, after all, winning is nice, bragging rights are better!
Assembled and ready to crack some packs were, of course, me, Andy, Marc, Zac, Samuel and Tom.
I’m not going to go into a play by play on the draft, it’s sufficient to say that fun was had and it was Marc who claimed victory on the day. Clearly, his experience at the Water Crystal Cup had served him well.
After the draft, I say down with a few of our players to get their thoughts on either their first FFTCG drafting experience or how drafting Opus VIII compares to previous sets. The questions I bugged them with are as follows;
1, Which card did you hope to pull?
2, Which card was your MVP today?
3, How do you find Opus VIII to draft? Or How was your first draft experience?
4, Has your opinion on drafting being used in the the top cut of events changed?
First our winner Marc.
1, Which card did you hope to pull?
“For my collection, I wanted to pull a foil Aerith, in terms of actual use in the draft Veritas cause it’s so ridiculously strong as it’s a big body with two instances of removal.”
2, Which card was your MVP today?
“Probably Umaru as in this draft 9k is difficult to remove especially efficiently against 3 cp. Having to attack or paying one was never an issue in the slower pace of draft. It’s also got lots of synergies in this pack with backups to get it back and other forwards that benefit from having it out.”
3, How do you find Opus VIII to draft?
“Really good, there are lots of good stand alone cards and the set isn’t too hard on archetypes. Building Earth with FFXV is a huge gamble in the draft but the reward is huge if it pays off. There’s also plenty of removal and low costed decent backups.
4, Has your opinion on drafting being used in the the top cut of events changed?
“I still think there is a large luck element and therefore shouldn’t be used as a top cut device. Also, it’s not a format that is commonly hosted to have been sprung on big events. It’s very enjoyable and I’d like to see more events with draft as the focus but it mixed tournaments I don’t think it should be used as from experience you can come 3rd out of 100 plus people and not make top 16 on day two because of and luck and a potential lack of draft experience with that set.
Up for questioning next was Andy.
1, Which card did you hope to pull?
“I hoped to pull a credit card with no limit but no dice.”
2, Which card was your MVP today?
“Umaro the Yeti. Nice to have a cheap big boy to push through. Puts pressure on opponents to try and deal with it.”
3, How do you find Opus VIII to draft?
“Drafting this set is quite decent. There’s a fair amount of removal options easily available with cards that were previously H now C, like Chaos Walker. Stops the format simply being, get out the biggest boy and win because you can’t easily stop it.”
4, Has your opinion on drafting being used in the top cut of events changed?
“Drafting for big events can be good as it helps define who are good players rather than who has the best deck. Still not something you want to see overly often though as practising draft can be quite expensive unless you make your own cube draft or something similar, but the time and effort for that is not always feasible.”
Next facing question time was Zac. Zac had never drafted before so I was keen to hear his thoughts.
1, Which card did you hope to pull?
“I really hoped to pull a libroarian. The combination of getting an extra card per turn and getting to choose from those four can really help mid-game pushes and out a lot of pressure on your opponent!”
2, Which card was your MVP today?
“My MVP was two cards: ark angel HM and red mage. The ability to get two points of damage in one is so critical in the draft as it’s first to six. Plus haste and brave is just great anyway.”
3, How do you find Opus VIII to draft?
“I really enjoyed my first draft, lots of people were relying on combo’s that weren’t just legends/heroes and built around getting a decent common or rare.”
4, Has your opinion on drafting being used in the top cut of events changed?
“I think this format should definitely be included in all events as it requires a degree of skill and knowledge rather than using the same old cards that we see (al-cid, dadaluma, genesis, Veritas…). I would go as far as to say that there should be some draft only tournaments!”
Seeing as I put this party together I suppose turnabout is fair play and I’ll answer my own questions…here goes.
1, Which card did you hope to pull?
Would saying a Dragoon be cliche from me at this point? I think so, I was actually hoping to get my mitts on a few Jinnai. I do like playing some Lighting and he’s such a nasty little ninja surprise, fun to play and can on occasion open your foe up for a nice swing in momentum.
2, Which card was your MVP today?
While I did pull a few Jinnai, it was actually Astrologian that put the most work in for me. I’d drafted a mostly water deck with a hint of lighting so Astrologians ability came in useful many a time much to the amusement and chagrin of Zac.
3, How do you find Opus VIII to draft?
I really enjoy Opus VIII as a set when it comes to drafting, it feels like the most rounded set since Opus 1 and it doesn’t really too heavily on cards from other sets to be playable.
4, Has your opinion on drafting being used in the the top cut of events changed?
No, I’m still in favour of it, I’m sure a time will come when I’m drafting and may change my mind, I mean, if a deck doesn’t have Dragoons in it then are you sure I built it?
All kidding aside, I stand by my comments about it limiting the success net-decking can bring a player.
Well that about wrap things up for our draft, there are plenty of empty packets for me to tidy away and Aranea cards to dream about.
I’m sure to see you all at the next major event and if you’re ever in Birmingham, I’m always up for a game.
Dragoons Eternal!
©SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved
