Locals Rundown: The Abhorrent Night

​Hello and welcome to the first of many Locals Rundown series. My name is Alex and I will be talking about our first week of Opus VII here at Magic Stronghold in Vancouver (we received our product a week late so this is the first week we all had our new cards). After spending a good amount of time working on an Earth Fire deck and a Mono Earth Prishe deck, I decided to play Mono Earth at my weekly locals event. I did quite a bit of playtesting, both in person and online, and I felt the Prishe deck was very strong. The list I ended up with is the following: 
                                                                             Deck List

I figured this was a good list to run in my local meta. Everyone was expecting a lot of Fusoya decks and people were running Legendary Aerith (3-050L) and Opus 2 Jihl Nabaat (2-037R) backups to counter it.  The forwards in this deck get very large and are hard to ping down. In my play testing I found that I always had plenty of opportunities to run my Prishe package including using Mog (Mobius) and Miner to pull Prishe’s from my deck or break zone.
I also wanted to write my first Locals Rundown this week, so needless to say, I was very excited for this Thursday. Unfortunately, you can’t always have everything fall into place, and I ended up going 0-4. I was pretty disappointed and didn’t feel like writing this piece at all. But I believe that writing about it will help me correct mistakes I made and help me plan corrections to my deck list. I also still believe this is a strong deck and that I had a bad night. I am by no means a top player, but I am no slouch either. It might be strange to write about going 0-4 and ask people to listen, but I’ll try anyway. Maybe we can both learn something!

Round 1: Vs Mono Fire
Here we go, Mono Fire is back in action fellas. Although this player didn’t end up placing, I really liked his list and I think he had a lot of competitive matches. The match started in what I thought was my favour. We both opened two backups and my deck loves to set up to pay for it’s expensive cards. He played a Gadot (5-005R) and I played a Noctis. The following turn he played Xande and I tried to Carbuncle (5-077H) my Noctis to ping Xande on the damage from Gadot, however my opponent bahamut’ed my Noctis on the stack and I didn’t have the CP to make him take 0 damage (I was relying on the carbuncle coming back to my hand to do that). Since Gadot swung, Xande was given haste and attacked for damage.
At this point we were both on 2 backups and top decking cards which favoured him as he had haste and I had expensive cards. I got my Prishe engine online but since one of his two backups was Lebreau, my strong forwards were unable to trade with Xande. I had to give up an Enna Kros to Hecatoncheir a Fusoya he played. If I hadn’t, Xande would have swung and killed someone every turn as he could afford to use Fusoya consistently. I hung on for awhile but he eventually drew another Fusoya and closed out the match.
 
Round 2: Vs Mono Lightning
I came up against our resident mono lightning player/expert and we had a very hard-fought match. He played around my Prishe’s very well, but I still managed to get value from them using Mog (Mobius) and Miner to grab them from my deck or break zone and autoplay them to the field. I took him to 5 damage, but he hit 3 exbursts (some Seifers and another card) and I couldn’t keep up with the draw that provided him. He had a very nice Illua special to activate a forward to stop my Cecil from killing it. In the end he had plenty of Edeas to use her special and he closed out the match. I think I might have won if not for some of the ex-bursts, but that is part of the game and how your build your deck!
 
Round 3: Vs Turbo Discard
I went first and played two backups leaving a 2 CP and 9 CP Prishe in my hand, unfortunately I did not know he was playing Turbo. On his turn he played Thaumaturge, Harley, and Edward, discarding my hand. I played Noctis, my best chance of stabilizing, however he had Cid Aultsyne in hand ready to shatter my dreams. His next turn he drew his Gesper and I was toast. Very quick loss, this deck was not prepared for turbo.
 
Round 4: Vs Fire/Wind Chelinka Yuri
Finally, a dual colour deck! I opened two back ups again and had Prishe’s in hand to get set up. Unfortunately, he also had 2 backups and quickly played Chelinka, Yuri, and a Y’shtola. This Y’shtola really crushed me as I could not Shantotto the board. He dull and froze my Prishe so I couldn’t use her ability and he party attacked when he could to kill my other forwards. My hand filled up with Prishe’s and I lost fairly quickly. I need a way to kill my own Prishe if she is stuck on board. 

What did I learn?
You can’t run too many Prishe’s.
Unless of course you want a hand full of Prishe’s. There were a few games where my hand filled with Prishe’s or I top decked Prishe’s when I had one on board. I will be cutting at least one 2 CP Prishe. Not to mention running 3 Star Sybils meant that you were never far from drawing a Prishe when you needed one. Of course, you also have Miner and Mog (Mobius) as well to dig out some Prishe’s on a rainy turn.
 
Some matchups you may need a way to break your own Prishe.
In matchups where your Prishe can be dulled and frozen, vs Ice and now Yuri as well, you need to be able to clear your Prishe to play another one or to activate it’s ability to play another Prishe. The other option is to play less Prishe’s and more diverse forwards. I believe the optimal answer in somewhere in the middle.
 
This deck needs to set up backups quickly.
In order to pay for large forwards and backups, this deck needs to set up quickly. In other matchups where your opponent plays backups fast (Mono Lightning) you need to be able to match their CP ramp so you are not out produced. I am going to test out using 1 CP evokers.
 
You really don’t ever play the new 9 CP Prishe from hand.
Meaning you don’t need to cram a ton of Prishe’s into this deck. Late game she might be a 5-6 CP removal option with the tempo of playing a forward, but you will have more than enough chances to cheat her in.
UPDATE: I have had some games where 9 CP Prishe is a 5 cost Raubhan or better that doesn't damage himself. I take back what I said about not playing her straight from your hand!

What I liked
Prishe, Mog (Mobius), and Miner are an unreal package and I found it very easy to search Prishe’s when I didn’t have one in my hand. The nice part about these cards is that you can do the searching on the stack during your opponent’s turn.

Zaghnal is very fun and can create a lot of tempo, however he is very weak to monster removal, particularly Zell (6-012R) and PSICOM Enforcer (5-083C).
​
Once Enna Kros was live, and Ingus was on board, I out powered any opponent and was able to get full value out of Noctis, Raubahn (4-096H), and Prishe (7-080H).

​Changes for Next Time
I have thought about what I would change in the future, and I have realized my deck list was too greedy. Some changes include: https://ffdecks.com/deck/5165967831203840

​I removed Calbrena, as nice as she is in certain matchups, she is too expensive to play, and the players at my Locals are great at playing around her, hitting/dulling/bouncing her after you pay the cost to activate her. I also removed Raubahn and Prishe to diversify my forwards for better top decks. Yuri is very strong in Mono Element lists, I probably should have tried him to begin with. Gabranth is likely the first to be cut, but I would like to test him out since he activates Zaghnal when he enters and could be very cheap late game.

Another way to transform Zaghnal into a forward.

I chose Yojimbo over Titan because the EX Burst is very strong, and Yojimbo is easier to cast. My forwards are already big, making a Titan less necessary. This is why I run 2 CP Hecatonchiers, but it is nice to have some EX bursts.
​
I tech’d in one Delita (1-112R) in case a Prishe is stuck on board with no freedom in sight. It will be easy to grab the Delita with Mog (mobius) if he is in my deck or Miner if he is in my break zone. I also considered the other 3 CP Delita (4-087R), but the conditions to break a Prishe would be too specific (my opponent would need a 2 , 6, or 9 CP forward out depending on my Prishe). I also considered Magic Pot, but I believe it would be too slow, and there is a decent amount of monster removal in the meta.

Although he has less upside than the other Delita, his break will come through in a pinch.

You would have to call me a dreamer to run this to break Prishe's.

​Finally, I swapped two Monks for Evokers. Monk is a powerful card, but my forwards are already very strong and do not need a boost often. Hopefully I can ramp up CP faster using the Evokers on turns when I have backup CP open.

 Conclusion
I hope you learned from my mistakes this week, I know I did. I also hope that you feel inspired to reflect and improve yourself when your locals’ nights don’t go well. I won’t lie, I felt very salty after going 0-4, but I feel motivated to try again with this deck. If you have any feedback for my list, let me know in the comments!

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