Preface

First of all, before I begin talking about my nationals experience, I would first like to introduce myself properly to the community. My name is Julian, and I have been playing this wonderful game relatively seriously since about April this year or so.

I first picked up this game when I went to PAX Melbourne around late October last year. I had known about the existence of the game for a while, but was unsure about where to actually get them, and I was also generally afraid of the heavy money sink that was trading card games. When I was much younger, back when I was growing up in Malaysia, I used to play Pokemon cards, but stopped touching any form of trading card games until October last year, when I first got into FFTCG. I remember buying two starter decks, about six booster packs (three Opus I and three Opus II packs because Lightning and Squall were two of my favourite characters, from two of my favourite games in the series). From there, I found out that a friend of mine plays FFTCG as well on a regular basis, and so he got me to start turning up for locals, and learning how to play. He was even kind enough to give me a huge starter pack of playsets of commons and rares from Opus I to III.

I actually only started seriously getting into the game around April or so this year as mentioned above, which is roughly around the time Opus V came out. I started going around hunting for playsets of many of the staple heroes and legends, often trading away my foils for them. About a couple of weeks in, I got my invites for the nationals by being handed down an invite after a Top 2 finish, in one of the local regionals tournament.

The basic gist of it is that it’s a Mono Water Fusoya deck. This is pretty much the list that Harigai piloted to 1st place in the recent Japanese Masters 2018 Finals. But first, I must talk about a previous deck that I used, which is the list I used in the Gaia Cup.

For the last 3 months, I have actually been dabbling with variants of Fusoya decks, for a couple of reasons: first, I believe that Fusoya is a really strong card in the current meta we have now, where Forwards are generally largely around the 7k or 8k power mark, and because up till 3 months ago, I had never ever played a Fusoya deck before.

I was actually very keen to try playing a Fusoya deck, and I did – my first Fusoya deck that I played in tournaments in the O6 meta was a Water/Earth Fusoya deck, utilizing both Cecil and Fusoya to often 2 for 1 the small Forwards in a predominantly Turbo Discard-heavy meta. The other reason I first decided to run a Water/Earth Fusoya deck was also because I absolutely loved the interaction that was Delita and Leila/Viking.

To me, it presented a lot of value as there were many 3 and 4 drops that you could remove with this combo to essentially lose a unit with small combat potential, in exchange for an opponent’s unit with a much larger combat potential; for everything else, Fusoya, Cecil and Ephemeral Summoner. Another neat interaction with the deck was Rosa to not only search for Cecil, but provide additional EX Burst value for Fusoya, and while on the field, she makes Cecil quite invulnerable to damage. One of the neatest things with the Rosa/Cecil combo is that it makes Cecil stickier towards both Glasya Labolas and Ramuh. It’s not a combo seen often, but in all honesty, it was more of a cute combo than really functional.

After going 4-2 in Gaia, I started to re-evaluate how I would want to aim for a Top 8 finish in Nationals. At times, I had thought that I should not shoehorn myself into sticking with Fusoya and go for the more common Nidhogg/Shadow Lord option. Then, a few friends of mine convinced me to give Mono Water Fusoya a go, and showed me Harigai’s list.

The weekend before the regionals, I did try making a Mono Water Fusoya deck, but it was the more midrange version as was commonly seen – utilizing cheap breakable backups such as Gladiator and Scholar to prolong your games, and allow for more recursion. I found that this version was much too slow and did not deal too well with the likes of Turbo Discard, Scions, Wind/Water YRP Standard Units/Chocobos, and Fire/Wind Cid (II) Rebels, among others.

After that weekend, I decided to rebuild it using Harigai’s list, and had jammed games with it, both with manual testing (yes I made like 4 or 5 different decks, and would often pilot both decks against each other myself. The idea being that if I piloted both decks, I would not only learn what I would do as the player of the deck, I would also learn to be more aware of what the opposing deck could do). During the week, I also met up with some friends and we tested a bunch of games together.

Lenna (3-144L) – her main job is to revive Ephemeral Summoner (basically additional copies of Ephemeral Summoner). In the late game, she’s used to revive Knights instead, depending on whether I needed the stronger Fusoya removal, or a cheap, big body to put pressure on my opponent to deal with. The last use, is her Special Ability, Arise, to usually revive a Cloud of Darkness from the Break Zone to remove a blocker.

Leila (6-126R)/Viking (4-133C) – it goes without saying that these two go together. The fan favourite Leila/Viking draw engine not only puts two bodies on the board (they make fantastic chump blockers), but also nets you up to two cards for each Leila played. Great way to thin the deck and get your cards faster.

‘Nuff Said

Cloud of Darkness (5-126L) – basically the boss monster of the deck. A large single target removal that allows you to often completely neuter a large singular threat, and swing tempo further in your favour. The Leila-Viking and the Lenna-Knight/Ephemeral Summoner packages also help to put bodies on the board for her entry effect. When she is allowed to attack, she also helps neuters the largest defender on the board. One thing you have to be careful of when playing her is calculating for exact removal – always try and plan for an opponent’s potential removal, before you decide to try and remove a forward for exact reduction value. Cloud is often this deck’s answer to cards like Illua (pop shield with Fusoya first), and Y’shtola(Fusoya does nothing to her besides trying to pop a Leviathan/Cuchulainn/Famfrit off EX Burst).

Steiner (4-129L) – basically a big beefy body that you can play for value once you get to 3 points of damage or more. I usually use Fusoya to trigger for 3 damage sometimes just to play Steiner. In essence, an actual named Knight with an effect to self-pump (usually not relevant).

Famfrit, the Darkening Cloud (3-123R) – as honest cards have put it, “both players select a Forward and put it in the Break Zone. Draw 1 card”. Usually allows you to trade a Viking for something troublesome to deal with like a Y’shtola, Illua, Rangers, or a Zidane.

Leviathan (1-178R) – bounce has generally been accepted as relatively bad in today’s meta, but at times it’s often still relevant as a Forward removal option. Plus, Water’s other removal options aren’t that great, plus this has EX Burst synergy for Fusoya.

Cuchulainn, the Impure (2-133R) – not usually hard casted from the hand, but this is generally an important combo piece for Fusoya. Triggering a Cuchulainn off Fusoya allows you to often reduce a Forward’s power to Fusoya’s killing range, and also netting you a card back for your effort. This card usually has more value as an EX Burst off a point of damage, rather than being hard casted from hand as mentioned earlier.

Merlwyb (4-138R) – the Water Forward searcher. I generally want to see her T1, and would often use her to search for a Leila.

Brahne (4-134C) – there’s six Standard Units in this deck that are search targets for her (3 copies each of Viking and Knight), and she’s an EX Burst card. Purely value.

Yuna (1-177R) – makes all your Water Summons cost 1 less when played from hand. Important for making both Leviathan and Famfrit playable off just tossing a card from hand.

Baderon (5-132R)/Artemicion (3-122C) – these two serve no purpose other than to filter through your deck faster. Both cards allows you to place cards you do not want to see at the bottom of the deck. Artemicion in particular allows you to throw Cuchulainns back into your deck for digging out with Ephemeral Summoner later.

Wakka (1-180R) – standard Mono Water Anthem backup. A lot more important than he looked, as he’d push Knight into a really powerful power range. Putting the likes of Lenna to 8k and Steiner/Cloud of Darkness to 9k has also proven to be really changing at times as well.

PuPu (4-128C) – another EX Burst Water Summon that allows you to exchange dead copies of spare Fusoya in your hand for 2 more cards from your deck. Neat little trick: when you’re about to get a card from deck (e.g. Brahne, Merlwyb, Baderon, Leila/Viking, Steiner, trading a Viking), and you can empty your hand by playing PuPu, do it. You’ll get to draw the 2 cards off PuPu first, then get your additional card, to sit at 3 cards in hand.

Cagnazzo (3-130R) – a relatively effective board wipe against the Leila Mirror, and otherwise provides another power reduction to combo with Fusoya. Is otherwise also a good blocking option (you can sometimes stall a couple of turns because your opponent just cannot swing over Cagnazzo). Though there are no Scholars or Bismarcks in this deck, you can use Leviathan if you want to do the Cagnazzo board wipe.

I arrived at the venue around 9.30am. So I found a place to sit among my friends, wrote out my deck list, had a chat with some of the other players sitting around me. I mainly just tried to ease myself into the environment.

After waiting for a couple of latecomers, the event itself started around 10.30am or so, with 39 registered players, some of which travelled to Liverpool from other states and regions to play in the nationals. There were to be 6 rounds of swiss. Here’s a breakdown of how the swiss rounds went.

Round 1 (versus…nothing) – yes, I got a Round 1 bye. Upon finding out that I had a bye, I had intended to walk around the room and see what other people were playing. However, a local player who was new to FFTCG asked if I could have a game with him, and show him the ropes, so I gladly obliged. After the game, I realized that some players have already finished their games, and so I tried to look around at any remaining matches.

Round 2 (versus Wind/Water) – this match was against a good friend of mine, James. James was largely one of the best Wind/Water players I know in my locals. James was playing a Wind/Water deck, utilising the O1 YRP package, Leila Viking package, and additional standard unit package for card draw, board flooding, and value. Y’shtola was ever-present to try and dodge board wipes with a wide field.

After the initial first few turns, I was lucky to get a Fusoya relatively early. From then on, I was able to control his board to a degree. The Ephemerals and Leviathans came at a great time to often deal with the Rangers. At one point, I had a board of two 9000 power Knights, and I played a Cagnazzo to weaken his blockers to the point that he had to eat a lot of damage. I ended the game with 4 or 5 Forwards, to James’ singular Ranger.

Round 3 (versus Mono Ice) – my opponent for this match was a Pulse Cup Top 8 finish player, Edward Davis. I had remembered him playing a midrange Mono Ice deck then, and thought that he might be playing Mono Ice, going first.

My opening hand had both a Yuna and a Fusoya, so I decided to open with the Yuna and waited to see what he would open with. Sure enough, Edward opened with an Argath and a Sephiroth on me. I decided to pitch the 3 cards that were not named Fusoya. On my next turn, I immediately dropped the Fusoya.

Eventually I managed to draw into a Steiner, and from there, my board just kept getting wider and wider. When I felt I had the momentum (managed to get a Wakka), I would only ever swing with one of my 8k Knights against his Genesis. I was generally very cautious about getting hit by Shiva, as I did get put to 6 points of damage in this game.

Edward misplayed towards the end and casted a Shiva on 2 of my bigger forwards, trying to force me to use an Ephemeral Summoner to block, however he then noticed he was on 3 damage, and I had 5 Forwards, so he did not attack into me. I was able to seal the game by being able to play a Cloud of Darkness to remove Genesis.

Round 4 (versus Mono Ice) – my opponent for this match was another good friend of mine, Elijah, who would eventually get 3rd place in the nationals, with a unique variant of Turbo Discard. Both of us having been practicing a lot together, we both knew each other’s deck and playstyle pretty well.

Our matches generally went really fast, and this was no exception. He opened a Sephiroth Gesper against me, but I managed to get an early Fusoya and stem the bleeding before it got out of control. As we traded blows, I got more Forwards on the field, and controlled his. As a last ditch attempt, he dropped a Rinoa to try and stall my board, but as luck would have it, I drew into a Leviathan to bounce her off the field and swung for game.

We had a 30 minutes break for lunch after this round.

Round 5 (versus Earth/Lightning) – my opponent for this round was Tyler Miller, a friend of Edward Davis’, who was my Round 3 opponent. He was playing an interesting Earth/Lightning deck that seemed to be heavier on the Lightning side of things.

The early game gave me Leila, Viking, Fusoya, Yuna, and Famfrit – I managed to get the Leila/Viking down on board with a Yuna and Fusoya. The Famfrit saw immediate use when Tyler attempted to play Al-Cid, targeting Leila, which presented a massive tempo loss for him. Throughout the game, my board got bigger, and I kept his board small by utilising Fusoya’s board control. Prior to the final turn of the game, on 6 points of damage, Tyler set up a Wol + Illua board, and played a Cid of Clan Gully to search for another copy of Illua. I played an Ephemeral Summoner to put Leviathan to the top of my deck, then pinging Wol with Fusoya, triggering Leviathan’s EX burst to return Illua to hand. He could only use Sheol in vain as the weakened Wol was forced to trade with one of my Forwards, allowing one of my other Forwards to seal the game.

Round 6 (versus Wind/Water) – this match was against none other than Christopher Mattiske. I was the only player on 5 – 0 going into this game, and Chris was on 4 – 1 at this point, so a loss would have made things a little hard for him.

I opened really badly in this game. I elected to mulligan an opening hand that had just Brahne as an opening backup, into an opening hand with a Knight, a Steiner, a Leila, and 3 summons. My opening draws did not give me any backups, so I elected to open with a turn 1 Steiner, which managed to get 3 points of damage.

Chris managed to set up a backup line of Rikku, Gladiator, and Fusoya. When I got my Leila and Viking down, he elected to ping Steiner with Fusoya, then playing a Valefor to clear the board. I had a Wakka in my hand at this point, and maybe I should have pitched my hand to overpay to put the Wakka on board.

My backup line only ended up being Wakka and Brahne, and I was simply not able to claw my way back from this one. I managed to get him to 6 damage, but he had a much faster deck than I did, and I could not deal with his ever-growing board of Paine, Leila, and Viking.

I ended the swiss at 5 – 1, with a first place finish. There were 3 other 5 – 1’s, so the remaining 4 slots in the top cut were filled by the top four 4 – 2’s.

Top Cut Finals (versus Wind/Water) – my final opponent of the day, would be none other than Christopher Mattiske himself. He had already beaten me once in swiss, and I attempted to convince myself that I was unlucky with backups. Boy was I wrong.

Game 1 – I had a slow start. Opened with a Baderon, then passed my turn. Chris opened with Leila, Viking, and a Gladiator. Then I opened with a Fusoya and was open to take 2 damage. My heart raced a bit when I saw him play a Bartz. I was very lucky that on the first point of damage, I hit a Famfrit, which removed his Viking (meaning Bartz no longer had Haste), so I was spared from taking 3 damage. Chris then got his own Fusoya down. I then attempted to respond with Lenna, reviving Knight, into Cagnazzo to remove his Leila and Viking. OnceChris had the Yuna and Rikku backup setup, he was able to generate massive tempo value using stuff like Ghis into Paine, and put many Forwards on the field. I attempted to remove Ghis by playing Cloud of Darkness, but ended up walking straight into Valefor, which removed 2 of my Forwards (Leila and Viking), and he removed another with Fusoya. Chris then responded with his own Cloud of Darkness on his turn, playing a Chocobo, and just swinging massively for a lot of damage. I lost this game.

Game 2 – once again, I elected to go first. I opened with Merlwyb, searching for Leila, and passed my turn. Chris opened with Yuna and Rikku. I then played Brahne, searched for a Viking, and played my own Leila Viking. Chris responded by playing Valefor, then dropping an Eiko. Both of us then played our own Fusoyas on our respective turns. He got a Ghis down once again, and I had to use a Famfrit to remove it. Chris continued to apply pressure by playing Zidane. All I had on the board at this point was a Leila. I swung with Leila to see what he would do. He decided to take the damage from the first Leila swing. I then played a Leviathan to bounce Zidane back to the hand to prevent myself from losing Forwards in hand. He played the Zidane again, and I once again attempted to the same trick, and he takes the point of damage once again. Having no Leviathan in hand, I played a Famfrit to get rid of Zidane. Passed my turn on an empty board, and this is where the carnage began.

Chris then played Leila, Viking, Bartz, and Chocobo, hasting the Viking, and swung for 2 points of damage. At this point I was now on 5 points of damage, on an empty field. All I could do this turn was play a Steiner, play a Lenna, reviving a Knight, and shot the Bartz with Fusoya to put myself on 6 points of damage. I thought that this would be enough to try and hold the fort – the Bartz needed to be shot, otherwise Chris just drops 1 more Forward, and Bartz immediately becomes a dual striker with 9000 power, Brave and First Strike. On his turn, Chris cracked the Eiko, to return Valefor to his hand. He then played three Valefors to wipe my board and swung for game.

That was the end of the championships for me.

Mayhaps there were things I could have done differently. This was honestly the only matchup of the day where I felt that the deck failed to make any form of dent. Ghis, Y’shtola and Zidane are essentially anti-Fusoya targets, and demand a Famfrit or a Cloud of Darkness (except Zidane) in order to deal with. His deck was also a lot faster than mine, having a lot of re-activation value from Valefor and Paine, combined with card draw, and aggression (Bartz and Chocobo provides very strong value to his board). As can be seen from his deck, Ghis also has many targets he could play in (Paine, Y’shtola, Chocobo, Bartz), which made him a really huge threat.

I learnt only on my losing turn that my own Leilas were ineffective against him, as they were simply Valefor fodder. It was really hard to remove Forwards like Ghis and Y’shtola using Cloud of Darkness, when it demanded that I had three other Forwards on board that simply did not die to Fusoya or Valefor.

Overall, I think this has been a large learning experience for me, to have played someone as experienced and skilful as Chris.