Showdown

I know some of you were wondering when we would see these two. Check out that art! Probably the most famous rivalry in Final Fantasy history is represented perfectly by Daniel Chou. The two pieces are meant to go together, and I really like them because they're more of a mature art style, and these cards represent the most developed part of the rivalry. I really like the faint smile Cloud has, because it shows his growth through the series. He seems to have grown out of the stoic loner mindset a little. Anyway, check out Daniel's page at http://www.zureul.deviantart.com. He has a quite the variety of pieces, definitely worth checking out if you like these two.

So first, let's talk about Cloud. Get to know him, because he's going to be your fighter backbone for the demo deck. He starts out at a solid 1600/1600, and his ability, though moderately useful, is a definite combo card. In FFTCG, characters can only have 1 relic, or 1 equipment card attached to them at a time. Cloud gets that 1 equipment or relic, and ANY number of swords you can stack on him. An aggressive player might have a mythril sword, gunblade, and masamune on him at once! That would even make T.G. Cid run screaming. Similar to Mog, he's only going to get better, the more swords we get, the more people will fear him.

Sephiroth is an interesting card as well. The first thing you notice, is that he has the Villain trait. (outlined in evil red so you don't miss it)
Villain is actually a negative trait. Anytime you win a battle, and you only have Villains in play, the relic goes back to the pile and nobody gets the relic. (Villains do what they want)
Of course, when you see his stats, you might not care too much. Sephiroth has the printed max for attack, and above average defense, as well as black and summon magic himself. This guarantees he will always be a threat. Don't forget that when he stands, he's immune to black magic, because of his black magic trait. You'll have to use brute strength to get him usually, unless he's already attacked this turn.

His character ability is also negative. Due to needing host bodies of remnants to manifest himself in the physical world, Sephiroth discards another character you control as a cost to be in play. This could be a liability, considering the penalty for winning with villains alone, and the fact that he has to do it again if you raise him. Seems balanced on paper to me, though we'll see as he shows up in decks. At any rate, he'll be tricky to use, but I'm sure a clever or experienced player will make good use of him.

Oh, and don't fret if you're one of the Sephiroth fanclub, and you don't want to juggle so many variables around in order to use him. Sephiroth is unique in my mind, as he has FOUR well-defined forms to make cards from: SOLDIER Sephiroth, Crazy "I am a clone" Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel Sephiroth, and this Advent Children version. The SOLDIER version isn't even a villain, how cool would that be to play?

Relics

How's this for a first relic? Thanks to Mog, we've got a totally redone version of the gunblade in case piece. Computer graphics seems to work really well for weapons, and IMO Mog's gunblade is the best of them all. He has a nice collection of art on his site: http://www.mogcaiz.deviantart.com check out his Sora especially, it's great.

So, as far as the game goes, can you expect to ruin people's shit with the gunblade? Absolutely. Generally if anything is a relic, it's going to be overpowered because the the extra strength offsets the fact that you're essentially gambling with your points to use them. The gunblade gives you a pretty weak damage increase, but in turn, dooms characters instead of discarding them when they are defeated, this does 2 things for you:

Firstly, it technically eliminates recovery. The definition of recovery is "prevent a character from being discarded" and when you switch out the discard for doomed, the abilities cannot function. That means no potions or cures. (Also note that the wording on the Gunblade is different from the wording on Zozo, which is "when a character would be discarded, they are doomed instead" which means that characters in Zozo can still be recovered. This makes the Gunblade significantly more powerful.)

Secondly, it kicks problem characters out of the battle, (so I guess that means no phoenix downs or raise either) This can be great for characters like Cecil or Zidane, that you want to STAY dead when they leave play.

It's definitely a strong ability, well worthy of the gunblade, but there's one more offset. Your character is considered to have no traits. No... you're not going to be able to turn your ranged character into artillery with this, or stick it on Cyan to make your opponent cry blood dealing with your counters. It definitely seems strong as is.

What do you think? Would you play relics? I do want hoarding to be a valid tactic, but not to be the only sensible option.

Kupo-po!

So before you say it, I know. The pictured moogle is not technically Mog (Mog is actually the badass moogle that tells you how high your attack is.)

The thing is that there is no Mog fanart or official art that translates well to card form that I could find. But I thought he was so tied in to the last post, I had to wing it. This moogle is actually from Final Fantasy XI, starring in one of the mini-expansions.

Anyway, Mog's ability is inspired from an old Game of Thrones card called Wheels within Wheels. WWW gave you the ability to switch plot cards around at will. Plots are similar to FFTCG's location cards, and I have a feeling Mog will be just as good in this game as WWW was in Thrones.

Being able to switch out locations can be useful. On the losing side, and don't want your opponent to take a certain relic? Switch it with something not currently useful. Overrun by your opponent? Bring in Bevelle really quick to reset the round. Or, how about starting with Auction House if you're behind, switching to Mako Reactor, and next turn retreating. Ouch.

(One important thing to note, is that since the leader check is made at the beginning of the round, swapping your locations around doesn't affect the amount of characters you can play.)

The more locations are released, the better Mog will get. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of evil my playtesters and myself can dish out.

The World is your Battlefield!

Ha! Bet you thought I abandoned this! I was actually on vacation, so I apologize for the delay in posts, and updates.

So, the demo deck will take a little while yet, I've got to do cards for the items, relics, locations, equipment... you get the idea. For the final product, I'll probably commission an artist to do a lot of the small stuff, but for now, I'll just use official art when I find it.

So anyway, I got some of the locations done. For those that don't remember, they are dual-sided cards. You fight at a location, and when you win, you get the relic on the back to add to your point total/arsenal.

Anyway, here's some without further ado:










For all who forgot, you play these before you fight, and it changes the face of the fight in some way. It should help to keep the game from feeling stagnant. See the class on the card as well? This is how you identify if the location matches up with your leader's class.

Expect a new post soon! I'll show you a character who thrives on these cards.