Eureka’s Quick n’ Dirty Opus X Legend Rundown

Xande – 2/5

Xande is a build-around with explosive potential, but it’s asking for a lot. The 1-drop Fire targets we have including Naji (the 7k Forward that can’t attack) are a little underwhelming to say the least, and 5 is a high damage threshold for proactive plays unless you’re able to deal a pretty good amount of damage to yourself to get the additional 2-Cost body, which doesn’t have a spectacular pool either. Like Golbez, there may be a magic formula to make this playable, but that isn’t what we were hoping out of a Fire Legend 10 sets in. Moreover, it competes heavily on Forward slots with the other Fire engine introduced with Opus 10, WOFF, which will bring us to our next Legend.

Reynn 4/5

As a decent body that gets cheap off an existing board (and has dedicated support Backups!), giving your entire engine outside of herself Haste, and rewarding you for playing aggressively, Reynn has a lot going for her. Cid WOFF will push her down to a minimum of 2 CP off Backups alone if you decide to go for Ice (giving you Shiva access) while Earth has more than enough Backups to reduce her cost fully including an in-color tutor with The Girl Who Forgot Her Name and recursion with Tama, though not offering another Monster-Forward target for Lann. It’s worth noting that Fritt got a huge buff with the power level of the new Ifrit as well, which leaves me real excited for this card and the archetype as a whole.

The only reason I leave the card as a 4 is that Reynn is only as strong as the kind of strategy she promotes, which, while looking good right now, might not be the conventional way we play the game.

Cloud of Darkness 5/5

The only card I’m putting above Reynn today is Cloud of Darkness. I’ve seen a lot of people just shitting all over this card because of the dull/freeze your own stuff downside, and I think that’s being ridiculously overplayed. The enter the field ability is already great, and I think that needs no explanation. The on-attack auto rewards you for playing cards during your Main Phase 1 and attacking with her last. I feel like when this card gets shit on a lot of people are forgetting that you can just choose to not attack with her if it would be detrimental to you, and that the ability can be easily abused by attacking with her on turns you extend your Backups and not attacking with her on turns that you play Forwards. The card seems like a total slam dunk in my book and the only reason I even considered giving her a 4 is that I’m not sure 4 CP 8ks have the ability to stick around, but the card would still be good even if getting nuked the turn after entering.

Squall 3/5

The first Legend revealed, Squall looked absolutely terrific when we first got a look at him. A decent, on-curve Ice 3CP that scaled as the game goes on still sounds fantastic, but after looking at the entire set, I’m not sure that Squall is really going to live up to the expectations I initially had for him. Damage 5 doesn’t seem like it will realistically be triggering very often, especially with how much access to Haste and 3+ damage in a single turn we have, meaning games can (and will) often get closed out at 4 damage. Decks that plan to abuse the Damage mechanic will either have to damage themselves (mostly a Fire or Earth gimmick) or have a lot of EX (also a Fire and Earth gimmick), and it seems hard to believe that we would be playing Squall if we have access to those elements. All-in-all he’s not a bad card, but I don’t expect to see him around as more than a cheeky bullet in most lists coming up.

Cid (FFBE) 3/5

Definitely the most overhyped Legend of the set, Cid has caused a massive shitstorm on Reddit and other social media for no reason. Dealing 2k to incoming Forwards give it some neat synergy with Wind/Lightning, which can keep up CP for old Ramuh to combo with this card (or new Ramuh if the effect doesn’t go off) and make use of it, and it also snuffs out some of the more annoying garbage Forwards like Viking, and Leila with the help of a Cactuar. The 9k nuke at Forwards getting cheated in might be relevant for Reynn, and incidentally hits non-negligible amount of stuff, but is definitely nothing to get your panties in a bunch over. Likewise, the S ability being as expensive as it is and requiring Dull means it isn’t the reason this card is being played, unless some ridiculous protect-Cid-and-recur-for-S strategy were playable.

Fran 2/5 (5/5 Title)

I had high hopes that we would get Chapters-era Revanant Wings Vaan, and that plopping out a bunch of Sky Pirates and hasting them would be a viable strategy. Alas, this was not meant to be, at least for Opus 10. Fran is good, but doesn’t have the potential to get big or deal big damage off of Backups alone, which is detrimental for her potential play in Constructed. In Title, however, Fran and Sky Pirates in general are going to be an absolute menace. This card is on the same level of busted as Ace L there, and I fully expect some real degenerate shit to start happening if Title remains a competitive format.

Warrior of Light 2/5

I am convinced that Reveal 5 is a cursed mechanic and I don’t think anyone can convince me otherwise. While having the potential to get you a decent board, the pool we have in color is… unconvincing to say the least, and I don’t know how excited I would be to build a Standard Unit deck and have this as my payoff card. The good news is that Arc, Ingus, and Refia are Warrior of Light cards that also have Standard Unit (or Warrior of Light) synergy that potentially make this playable. Still, I would expect this to be one of our last choices, since the Damage 5 ability is not likely to be very relevant for most of our games.

Shantotto 3/5

By far the hardest Legend to evaluate, Shantotto could definitely go either way. For the uninitiated, Shantotto basically states that if you don’t have a way to know the top of your deck at all times, you don’t get to play 3-drops, and you need to be able to fulfill every effect when you don’t; this means that you probably have to play Summons if there’s even a small chance of a cost 2 or less being on top. Shantotto reminds me a lot of Fusoya in potential, but suffers badly from having to compete with 2 other great cards with the same name. I’m not sure who can break this card, but it’ll happen eventually, and it’ll be fantastic when it does. I’m just not convinced that this is the set that it’ll happen in though, or that Earth decks are ready to drop Shantotto 7 and/or 9.

Feolthanos 2/5

Another shitstorm causing card, Feolthanos, or Ardyn 1.5 as I would like to call him, is the ultimate hatebear. “Protecting” your other Forwards while absorbing a lot of the ways we normally deal with similar big hatebears (like Ardyn) is his gimmick. I think a lot of people are really overrating this card; as a XII card and a big hate-beary stick he definitely has uses, but it’s gonna be a 7-CP vanilla manasink a lot of the time, and around here we call those borderline unplayable. We shouldn’t forget that a lot of the existing decks have really clear, effective outs to this card (Ice/Fire has Vayne, Nael, and new Cloud of Darkness beyond just Party attacking) and Fusoya has, well, Fusoya. This card requires another element of protection or a lower CP cost to really shine, and feels gimped without that.

Lightning 1/5

This set doesn’t even have an Odin. What the fuck. Being a pseudo-2CP 8k with the tradeoff that you have to make your deck shittier isn’t strictly the only thing the card has going for it, but the active requiring the removal of 2 Odin rather than just one makes the ability significantly more difficult to trigger more than once or optimistically twice per game, and I don’t really think that’s enough to justify running it even if we got a playable Odin in the upcoming sets. Believe me, no one is more disappointed that a new Lightning with a ‘meh’ Active is mostly unplayable, but here we are. Maybe if we get a better Odin in the future there’ll be hope for the card in Title or strictly for trading out 2 in hand for two kill spells.

Ashe 3/5

Despite being a mostly-great, new modular Forward, Ashe is in a bit of an awkward spot. She doesn’t particularly benefit off of her name, category, or job, and only has a mild payoff for being built into Mono Water. The Mono Water slots are pretty highly contested and it seems unlikely that we’ll be cutting Nichol or some other package for her. On a bit of a side note, the draw and discard 1 mode is interesting and potentially useful if we can hit a critical mass of cycle that allows us to do some kind of unconventional deckbuilding styles in terms of color distribution and breaking Light/Dark building rules, but nothing really jumps out in that regard so far. Still, all of her modes are decent and I expect to see her here and there, most likely seeing the most potency in Mono where her +1k pump will get the greatest effect.

Folka 4/5

Folka is definitely the more exciting of the two Water Legends, and is where I’m expecting the neck in “normal decks” to be seen. Assuming you had a plethora of Water Summons to fuel Folka, she’ll be an absolute nightmare to deal with, and bouncing anything by discarding 1 is really hard to trade CP with efficiently. She gives you an out for your useless early-game O8 Leviathans and inopportune Famfrits, which are both powerful but situational Summons for Water. If that wasn’t enough, she can also enable some crazy combos, like O1 Light Onion Knight dealing 1 point of damage for every Summon you have in your hand. Really a fantastic and deep card all around, I expect to see her open up new archetypes now and in the future, and to see plenty of play in Mono as well.

Refia 2.5/5 … for now

They really fucked us over by not giving us a new Ingus and Luneth this set, and I’m sad. Despite this tragic turn of events, Refia can still do some interesting things with O2 Ingus. This card really didn’t wanna be shelled into supporting Earth and what is shaping up to be Wind, when it really wanted to be a stronger player with a new Luneth in a Water/Fire shell, where it’s job WoL can shit out Forwards like Aigis, Sol, Warrior of Light, and Dusk like no one’s business. For the time being we have a gimped but still decent Refia. It also stings that she’s most likely overshadowed by the Light Hero this set, Citra (who looks absolutely fantastic in any deck she fits in and is definitely my kind of card). This isn’t the last we’ll see of Refia though, and I’m sure she’ll be terrorizing us in the future as we get a good 4CP Luneth. 

Hein 4/5

Probably the card most underrated by Western players so far, Hein is filled to the brim with good text. Sitting pretty above the curve at a 4CP 9k with optional evasion (that even fizzles stuff like Fusoya) is great and makes for one of the best defensive Forwards we’ve seen to date. His second ability, while not the primary draw of the card, gives you a Yuri-like CP drain in the later stages of the game that can help you close out games winning on the swing-back. His primary downside is not being able to play other Light cards (for the most part) and the sheer abundance of good Dark Forwards like Veritas, Galdes, and Raegan that serve as desirable slots alongside Kam’lanaut. Still, I expect to see a lot of these bad boys in the upcoming set.