Introducing Opus XI’s Chase Card: Sephiroth 11-130L

​Today Square Enix revealed their new Card of the Week for Opus XI and boy is it is a wild one. Sephiroth 11-130L is our Dark Legend for the upcoming set and has a lot powerful text. Post announcement we have already heard cries that this iteration of the One-Winged Angel is prime example of power creep, which I don’t necessarily disagree with. I do want to talk about the potential for this card, rather than talk about if it is OP or not. In my opinion, Sephiroth fits into two distinct types of decks. But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s talk about the card first.

Sephiroth is a 4 CP Dark Forward with 10000 power, 2000 over the usual vanilla stat line of 8000 power. His job is “One-Winged Angel” rather than “War Hero” or “Soldier”. This isn’t too relevant, but it does allow them to buff the “War Hero” job in future sets without affecting 11-130L, since the majority of Sephiroth’s are War Heroes. Sephrioth has the following text: “You can only play Sephiroth if either player has received 4 points of damage or more. When Sephiroth enters the field, choose 1 Character. Break it.”. This ability is wildly powerful as it allows you to break ANYTHING on the field whether it be Forward, Monster, or Backup. The card only gets better, however. His Special Ability, Octaslash, costs one card named Sephiroth and reads “Choose up to 1 Forward, up to 1 Backup, and up to 1 Monster. Remove them from the game. You can only use this ability if each player has received 5 points of damage or more.” This Special is admittedly harder to pull off than the ETB since BOTH players must be at 5 or more damage for it to go off, but the cost for the Special is peanuts. The downside of this card is that it cannot be played until one or both players reach 4 damage. This means it cannot be cheated in by Emperor Gestahl, Devout, you name it. 

If you want to learn more synergies or ideas for this Sephiroth, the Card of the Week article by RB on official site is an excellent read and a great place to start. ) But now let’s get into why I am excited for this Sephiroth and which decks we might see him in. I believe this Sephiroth has two homes, in aggro lists, as well as more control/combo-oriented lists.

Aggro Lists

Aggro decks look to take down your opponent as fast as possible. This makes Sephiroth appealing as a finisher based on his ETB alone. If you can get your opponent to 4 damage quickly, you might have a real chance of closing out a game fast after dropping Sephiroth (who himself will be come an unrelenting beater).
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In order to use his Special Ability, you would likely be in Ice as it may be difficult to run more than 2 of the Dark card in your deck. Remember that aggro decks (and any deck for that matter) need to be consistent. Aggro decks play with lower hand sizes and cannot afford to have an unplayable Dark card in hand. Even if you are playing Ice and have multiple copies of Sephiroth, you are less likely to stockpile a Sephiroth in hand while playing aggro. We also haven’t seen that many aggressive Ice decks since Turbo way back in 2018. Ice/Fire might be a good fit, as it does have a lot of FFVII synergy, but I believe that we will see this new Sephiroth as a 1-2 of in decks that don’t even play Ice. For example, WOFF decks are very fast and get their opponents to 4 damage before you can blink. Mono Fire decks also have employ lot of haste to enable this guy as a finisher. Fire/Ice VI may like this card, but that deck also enjoys Veritas, Kam, and Raegen as Dark additions. All three of the above decks could make use of the new Dadaluma to accelerate self-damage if needed, although it shouldn’t be. We of course may see entirely new aggro decks pop up in future sets. Lightning would be another colour to watch out for, especially since they are getting their own Sephiroth in the starter deck.

Would WOFF play Sephiroth?

Control/Combo Lists

Now if you are looking to spam that special then you are going to need a very specific deck. Mono Ice and Ice/Earth are both lists that already look to spam a cheap Sephiroth Special Ability (Sephiroth 7-034L to be exact). Those are both decks that can sit back and take some damage as well. Both decks are also capable of flickering Sephiroth back onto the field using Rinoa or Unei. The options are endless.

I'd slot Sephiroth 11-130L into my Reunion II Ice/Earth list! (among many changes)

I believe that these types of decks will look to use Sephiroth’s ETB early through their own damage count, and in late games use his Special to close out the game. Ice/Earth has many ways to recur or search Sephiroth 11-130L or just other copies of Sephiroth for his Special.

Some ways your can deal yourself damage.

While both strategies listed will look to use Sephiroth and his powerful ETB, they will do so in very different ways. The nature of this card’s strengths across many archetypes means that it will be THE chase card of Opus XI, and that’s not even counting how many people will collect it for just being a Sephiroth. But that is enough from me, what do you think about the new Sephiroth Legend? Let me know which deck you plan to play it with in the comments below. Thanks for reading Mysidians!
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-Alex Scott

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