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?