Locals Rundown: ­­­­­­­­­­­­My Trip to the US-Eh! (Geeky Villain in Everett)

Hello mages, welcome back to The Mysidia Post eh! This weekend I decided to take a trip down to Everett, Washington, for a little FFTCG at the Geeky Villain gaming store. For reference, I live in Vancouver, Canada; and it is about a 2-3 hour drive depending on the border wait (waiting for my Nexus card to come in the mail!).

However, that isn’t so bad as I loaded up a bunch of podcasts, including the Crystal Tower Podcast by Alex Hancox, and the Live from Midgar Podcast, by the folks at Geeky Villain. I highly recommend both podcasts if you have not listened to them before.

I arrived at Geeky Villain with a box of Tim Hortons donuts for my American friends and was instantly welcomed by Edward (the owner) and two of the players. I watched some matches and checked out the store while I waited for everyone to arrive. If you live close enough to visit, you better go check out this place, it has something for everyone, and the ownership puts a lot of time and care into providing a great experience for the customer base.

This week I was running my Prishe deck, but instead of Yuri, I decided to try out the Dark package instead. You can find my list here. P.S. Thank you to FFDecks for their amazing website. I recently became a patron of theirs as I spend an hour a day or more on that site, I thought that it is the least I could do. If you want to check out their Patreon you can find it here. They have some cool incentives and if they get to 100 patrons, they will work on a mobile app! (I know we all want that).

Back to my report. The tournament started, and I played my first match and won, at which point I pulled out my notebook to take notes. My opponent looked at me and said, “its best of three”, which completely took me by surprise. As I never played a TCG before FFTCG, and the best of three format was new to me.

I was already nervous playing against new players, so when I found out about the best of three, I started thinking like crazy. What was in his deck that I needed to watch out for in Game 2? How will he try to counter my deck?

I ended up having a lot of fun playing this format, and it was a big eye opener for me. If I were to ever make it to a top cut of a tournament that used Best of Three, I would need more practice. Because of the format, even though we only played three rounds, I ended up playing 5 more official matches than I usually do at my locals. Vancouver usually has 9-15 players, so we play 3-4 best of one rounds. 

Round Breakdowns
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Round 1: Vs Mono Ice (Steve)
Game 1- My opponent went first and opened an even costed backup, I can’t remember which one. I played out two backups and he followed up with Edward to make me discard a Zodiark. He also played a Celes to freeze my backup. On the following turn I played an Enna Kros and a Noctis, and he followed up with a Cu Chaspel to dull and freeze it. He hit my Noctis with a Cid Raines ETB and swung with Celes to finish it off, but I cast a Titan to save Noctis, who was 8k from Enna Kros, this board swing allowed me to take the advantage and hold on to it for the rest of the game, pushing my damage. I won 7-6.

Game 2- My opponent opened over the first three turns: Devout, Edward, (to discard a Zodiark again) and Cu Chaspel on the forward I played to match his Celes (again!). He got on board fast in this game and finished me quickly with a lot of dull and freezing, as well as some efficient plays with Cid Raines, Rinoa, and Argath. Very well played by Steve!

Over the first two games, I had tried to set up Kam’lanuat and my Dark package to no avail. Steve was very on top of dealing with Kam as soon as he dropped, including hitting him with a Cid Aultstyne. In general, I had a hard time playing around Cid Aul, as I knew how fast Steve could come at me, it was very difficult to not be proactive on board. His key Argath or Glasya discards meant that he set up some great Cid play across a few games. I also had trouble in the first two games ramping up properly to play Kam off of three backups, making me lose more cards when he was killed. I definitely have a lot more practice to go to use him efficiently.

Game 3- I finally hit a great backup opening, turn 1 Miner and Mog (Mobius) and turn 2 Evoker and Enna Kros. Steve had a slow turn where he must have had a difficult hand, so I went unchallenged. Despite this, Steve came right back into the game and held on until the end to take back the board and finish me off. This included playing an Edward to make me discard Zodiark AGAIN, and Steve playing three Genesis in a row to keep my forwards down. There was a very crucial turn where he dropped an Argath to make sure my Prishe could not get any value.
In this match, I used Star Sybil to try and get my Prishe’s online opposed to Kam and the Dark package, but unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my hand full enough to protect them. I ended up with a very big board pushing for lethal. But 2 CP Shiva combined with other freezes allowed Steve to get on board and finish me off in the end. I lost 7-6.  

Shout out to Steve: You are a great player and I learned a lot playing against you, see you next time!

​Round 2: Vs Mono-Earth (Ex-Bursts and Mass Forward Rush)
I apologize, as I forgot my opponent’s name for this match (Update: His name is Jeff!). He was a very nice guy with a rad custom Y’shtola playmat. We had some pretty exciting matches and his deck was very fun/terrifying to play against. From what I saw the deck played most forwards and a lot of ex-bursts, with very few backups (the only one ever played in our matches was Raubahn). 

Game 1- He opened 6 CP Vanille to play out a 4 CP forward, but I was able to stabilize with my own forwards and back ups. The game was close, but I was able to take him in the end by controlling the board. As soon as my backups were set up, I could just pay for my stuff easily and it was hard for him to develop a board since he had to hold off on some turns to save up cards in hand to pay for his higher cost forwards.
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Game 2- He opened 6 CP Vanille -> Vincent -> Yuffie and I fell behind quickly. I tried to set up my backups, but I did not contest the board enough and he overwhelmed me. I got steamrolled this game and lost.

Game 3- This game was pretty tight, I played a turn one Enna Kros. He opened fast again, and had three forwards out (Light Yuna, 6 CP Vanille, and a Yang). On my second turn, I played an Ingus and pitched 2 for a forward Raubahn, killing my opponents Vanille.  My opponent played an Ursula declared an attack with Yang, and I thought I declared a block with Raubahn. I then used Ingus’s ability to pump Raubahn by 2k so he would break the Yang.

I think I was very nervous, because I realized that I never actually declared a block. The result would have been me dulling my only forward for no reason, and my opponent getting 3 free damage, so it was clear what I meant to do. We had another player come over to judge, and he ruled we rewind the attack, as it would be unfair to rewind to let me block, this way my opponent would not lose a forward. Thinking back on it, him knowing I could use the ability after already attacking wouldn’t have changed anything, because he had committed to an attack by declaring it, I was going to win that exchange if I had called my block, as he had no cards in hand. However, I did not declare I was blocking, and the situation was 100% my fault. I think I was very nervous about playing new people and playing best of three, that I just skipped a step in my head.

The mood of the game changed, and I controlled the game to close out and get my first best of 3 win. I would like to apologize to my opponent for that misplay, I have never forgotten to declare a blocker before, and I hope that never happens again. Thank you for being so nice to me about the whole thing, I feel bad that our great matches had to have something so silly cloud them. 

Shout out to my opponent: Sorry for forgetting your name, and for the misplay. I had a lot of fun playing against you. PS I hope you get that cool playmat you showed me made soon!

​Round 3: Vs Water/Lightning (Miles)
Next up was Miles, who I had seen post enough on the FFTCG Seattle FB Group that I recognized him when he said hello. He was playing a Water/Lightning deck that got out on board fast while developing backups simultaneously. He took advantage of his large boards with Cloud of Darkness. The MVP in this matchup was his Red Mage which consistently bounced Galdes, Noctis, or Ingus throughout our matches. The deck also had a very interested Category V engine, with the new Faris to help his draws and fix his backup line if need be. The deck also ran Famed Mimic Gogo, which put in a lot of work for it’s cost. 

​Game 1- He started strong, efficiently building backups and playing Leila-Viking. I developed my backups and played Kam, calling Lightning on my next turn. Unfortunately, Kam would meet his end due to Famfrit. Miles controlled the game and finished me off fairly quickly.
 
Game 2- This game was similar to game one, except I was able to set up my board more. I thought I had things under control and drew into WOL and Gabranth. I also had a Zodiark in hand. His board was decent, 4 forwards, so I thought Zodiark might come in handy, and I opted to play Gabranth by pitching WOL, unsure if I was being too greedy. However, the next turn my opponent played another 2 forwards and I was able to cast a Zodiark on my next turn. The game swung in my advantage, and as I was trying to close it out, I used Cecil’s Dark special, but took the damage too soon, as Miles had a Famfrit waiting. It was a tricky situation to rewind, and I would like to apologize to Miles again for that. I think I was nervous and just played too fast, as this isn’t a problem I usually have. However as it was my second bizarre misplay of the evening, I felt really bad about it.
 
Game 3- This game was similar to the first two, with Miles taking the advantage again, however I hit a very lucky 6th damage Noctis on EX Burst which allowed me to hold on until eventually we hit time and Miles won on damage dealt since we didn’t finish the match. This was the correct result, he out played me and deserved that match. Funnily enough, I was setting up for another huge Zodiark play in game 3, because for awhile we were both amassing forwards, but there was a big trading turn where it made Zodiark much less appealing, I think I played it in the end for minimal value. 

Shout out to Miles: Thanks for welcoming me so kindly. It was a blast playing you at FFTCG and Smash Brothers!

What did I learn?

• Best of Three is a lot of fun, but very challenging!
• With this deck, sometimes you need to pitch a few Prishe’s early, even if you can set up a board, in order to top deck some cheaper 9 CP Prishe’s later.
• Everyone that plays at the Geeky Villain is super nice and I can’t wait to go back down there and play again.
• I think that Mono Earth Prishe works better with Yuri, so that you can develop an Earth backup for 2 CP Prishe rather than Chaos. You will also have less dark/light cards in your hand in the Yuri build, to use for Noctis’s ability, Prishe’s ability, and summons etc.
• I need to practice playing around Cid Aulstyne more.

What I liked
I am still getting a lot of enjoyment out of playing this deck. Playing Ingus and Noctis out together with Enna Kros and a stocked backup line makes it very difficult for your opponent to swing back at you, unless they are prepared to deal with Noctis. Raubahn surviving his ETB comes in handy as well (with Ingus and Enna out).
Krile did not see any play, and I would rather run another Vanille, or put some Ice counters in the deck. The Phoenix was amazing when it came up, but the opportunities was far and few between to cast it. I would most likely add another Heca for the extra Vanille.
Galdes is the man, I wish I could run him in my other deck with Yuri. I know it is possible, but I just hate those odd times your hand is clogged. I could try one of each, but I think I would rather run two Yuri’s.

Changes for Next Time
Essentially, I would cut the Dark package as well as Phoenix and Krile, to add Yuri’s and Vanilles back to the deck. I would also like to run Scholar, so that I can pitch summons and dig them up at a crucial time. This deck ramps quickly, so it is likely I can play Scholar efficiently. I want to run Guy, because he can win that Ice matchup, but I also think a Brave attacker would really help me push through in some matchups, since he can block as well and work well with Ingus’s ability. If I owned a third WOL, I would probably play that instead. 

Conclusion
Overall, my trip to Everett was well worth it. The Geeky Villain crew made me feel very welcome, which is consistent across my experiences with FFTCG players. Our game really has a fantastic community as a whole! By traveling down to the ol’ US of A, I was able to play against new people and new decks that played differently than I had grown accustomed to at my local meta. I will surely become a better player from attending this locals!
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Now I am back to focussing on my local scene and preparing for the Christmas season. However, I plan to return to Geeky Villain as soon as January to get some more competitive experience against some amazing players!

​-Alex

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