#and that snowballed so quickly into shadow and Maria time

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

These are so silly and unplanned I’m just having feelings over this family

[vino-and-doggos]

Time Enough at Last

Read full text on AO3 and FFN

Length: 2007 words

Rated: T

Status: Incomplete (1/3)

Summary: Submitted for your approval: one wants money, women, status, fame, and everything else in the world. The other just wants more time alive, to see his daughter grow, to love his wife for a little longer. Two seemingly different personalities must learn to coexist so that they both can have it all.

Beta-ed by @flourchildwrites because she’s the literal BEST.

Meant for Halloween, but because I can’t do anything in life on time, Happy All Saints’ Day? We’ll pretend it works

Chapter 1

“First Ishval, now Liore. The East has been a real hotbed, huh?” Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes reclined in his chair, stretching his back a bit. Sitting for so long was really starting to take its toll. And really, how long was he supposed to remain idle? Something, some darkness, dwelled beneath the surface of Amestris. Maes could feel it in his bones.

“It’s not just the East,” Captain Focker said solemnly. “There have been reports of uprisings in the North and West, as well.”

“The bodies are piling up all over. When will it end? Will the government actually be able to stay in control? How has the military managed to sweep so much bloodshed under the rug in the first place?” Hughes’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll be in the archive room.”

“Is something wrong?” Focker asked as the door nearly closed on Maes’s cavalry skirt. “Lieutenant Colonel Hughes?”

With each step he took, Hughes thought of another uprising.

Thinking back, there was South City. Fotset. Pendleton. Most recently, Liore.

But one rebellion (an awful word for it, really) kept coming back to the forefront. The one he had a part in.

Ishval wasn’t that long ago; he remembered being on the ground in the stifling heat and how the coarse, irritating sand niggled its way into every crevice. If he listened closely, to this day he could still hear the echoes of screams and the rattle of rapid gunfire. What he never had to look closely for, however, was the memory of the way the desert soaked up the blood of the fallen, like a sponge that never had its fill. Almost like the ground was thirsty for the blood of the citizens.

Maes had a hunch. And he hoped that he wasn’t right. Mulling over the secret to the Philosopher's stone - human sacrifices - in addition to thinking about the locations of the uprisings, frankly, made him sick.

But looking at the archive room’s map plunged a knife deep into his guts. He started circling every known location of bloodshed on Amestrian soil, then began looking up others. Connecting the dots was simple, even for a non-alchemist; he’d seen Roy do it plenty of times. Life occurred in patterns, and alchemy was no different. Hughes no longer felt sick. It felt like his stomach had dropped out of his body completely.

He lived here. His wife lives here, his daughter, his friends. Images of each of them flashed in his mind in dizzying succession. How could this be happening? How could this be happening here? And how long did they have before the final point on the map also had been soaked in blood?

Numbly, his mouth formed words whose meaning his brain struggled to grasp. “I have to tell Fuhrer Bradley about this right away.”

A slamming sound startled Hughes from his stupefied state. Turning, he saw a buxom woman with beautiful porcelain skin accented with sharp features. Gloves that barely concealed razor-sharp nails extended up past her elbow, and an ouroboros tattoo adorned her chest. Sliding a kunai from the concealed holster underneath his standard-issue Amestrian blue sleeve, he smirked.

“Nice tattoo.”

“Humans are fascinating creatures. You really want those to be your last words?” Lust asked as she lunged at him, fingers extending and piercing his chest clean through. At the same time, Maes’s kunai flew true, hitting her in the dead center of her forehead. His wound gushed crimson, creating a macabre purple when mixed with the blue of his uniform. The kunai, however, reflected clean silver in the low light.

Her fingers retracted, allowing movement again. Hughes’s adrenaline carried him through the door and to the front desk, before realizing that a private line was never truly private, even in military headquarters. Maybe especially in military headquarters. And maybe the fuhrer wasn’t the one to speak to.

Stuttering steps led him to a phone booth just outside the walls of military lines. He quickly dialed Eastern Command, only to be held up once again with red tape. Just as the line clicked over to hold as he was being transferred, Maes heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Put down the receiver, Lieutenant,” Second Lieutenant Maria Ross stated slowly and calmly. She pointed her service pistol at Maes with the conviction of a cold-blooded killer.

The lieutenant colonel turned his head slowly, and for the second time that night, his perceptive eyes narrowed. “Nice try, but you’re not Maria Ross. She has a mole underneath her left eye.”

“How observant of you,” a gravelly voice that most definitely did  not  belong to Maria Ross said. “How’s this?” A sparkle of red electricity danced across the familiar, yet unfamiliar, face.

“What are you?” Maes asked incredulously.

Ross’s face twisted into a grotesque smile that was unlike anything that Hughes had ever seen cross her face. “Heh, so caught up with technicalities like moles and names that you’re forgetting to be concerned for your life.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hughes answered. He turned back to the phone receiver in front of him, praying to anyone or thing listening that Roy would pick up the other end. The lieutenant colonel surreptitiously slipped the other knife from the holster in his sleeve. “But I have a family waiting at home for me. It would be a shame to disappoint them!”

He whirled around, intending to fling the knife at his assailant, but stopped short when he met the cool green eyes of Gracia.

His lovely, beautiful Gracia.

Frozen, Maes could only watch as the bullet discharged from the creature’s gun, hitting him squarely in the right shoulder, below and to the left of the puncture mark made by the temptress’s impossibly long and sharp fingernails. Slumped over against the unforgiving glass of the telephone booth, he heard a soft click on the other end of the line. He had never hung up the phone. He hoped the sound was Roy hanging up, that he had heard something, anything.

Blood began trickling down his arm, pain blossoming from the wound. Maes felt himself being moved, but he couldn’t summon the energy to focus his eyes enough to see which direction the creature was carrying him. Just as black began seeping into his field of his vision, he heard the same gravelly voice from before say, “You’re coming with me. And you better not die on the way.”

Everything seemed to echo off of the cavernous, circular walls in the sewer system below Dublith. As Greed attempted to stealthily make his way through the labyrinthian tunnels, he lamented this fact, wishing that moving along via the concrete walkways was as silent as moving through shadows.

Greed cautiously peered around the corner of a junction, only to see the animated suit of armor inching along as though he were a worm. Making his decision, the homunculus turned the corner and casually walked towards the immortal idiot. He was reminded, yet again, of the reverberations off the stone walls as he approached, when suddenly, the kid’s head popped open to reveal one of his favorite blondes.

“Martel, I’m glad to see you’re safe,” the homunculus said. His voice added to the echo around him. It was making him uncomfortable, like an itch in the dead center of his back that he couldn’t seem to reach.

“Greed!” she exclaimed. “What the hell happened up there? No one else has made it down yet.”

Greed grimaced and crossed his arms over his chest, pushing aside thoughts of his henchmen fighting off the military and the alchemists. “Yeah, things have gotten a little out-of-hand. We need to figure a way out of there.”

“I can’t let you do that,” another voice said calmly from behind the avaricious homunculus.

A chill slid down Greed’s back for reasons unknown. However, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was going to let his poker face slip. Instead, Greed chose to wear another emotion on his sleeve: exasperation.

“What are you doing here, old man? The most powerful being in the land, swimming around the sewers with rats like us. What a joyous day!”

“Just because I’m about to turn sixty years old,” started Fuhrer King Bradley, his visage calm and genial, “doesn’t mean I won’t be able to finish this job quickly and return home.” As the sentence continued, the expression on his face turned menacing. Or was it a trick of the shadows?

A smirk crossed Greed’s face. “Then retire!” he exclaimed, calling upon his ultimate shield and lunging at Bradley as a slick, black carbon coating began to crawl up his arm. In the next second, however, the homunculus heard a splash. He turned, almost unaware of the horror that awaited him, and saw his right arm, half-hardened by the ultimate shield, writhing in the filthy sewer. Greed’s stomach turned, but not due to pain - the injury barely stung. It was utterly shocking to see your own mutilated limb twisting in the water.

“How did you…” he started, looking at the stump that was crackling with red as it regenerated. “Hm. The old man’s got some moves!” Greed said through gritted teeth, jumping back as the fuhrer advanced towards him, a sword in each hand. In the blink of an eye, Greed dodged another attack, another lunge with a sword. It seemed as though the leader was able to anticipate his movements before the ultimate shield even started to make them.

Another slash. Another stab. Another wound, deeper this time. The stinging had elevated to pain.

The left arm at the wrist. The soft tissue directly underneath his ribcage. Greed couldn’t maintain his shield under King Bradley’s constant barrage of attacks. He parried as the fuhrer came at him again, this time allowing the shield to advance up his right forearm.

Steel struck carbon.

With a grunt, Greed shoved back against Bradley, attempting to be on the offensive. His fingers fully regenerated, and the shield slid down and created points at the end of each digit, encased in jagged red sparks as they grew long and sharp. Swiping at the old man in front of him, the sharp-toothed homunculus let out a growl.

Greed the avaricious left himself unprotected.

In a flash, in the blink of an eye, in a split second, Greed found himself with swords protruding from his throat. Any movement would mean, at the very least, that he would be rendered useless while his tendons and ligaments reconnected; at worst, his head would have to completely regenerate. It was best just to stay still.

“I may not have an impenetrable shield or talons that can pierce any substance. I may not be able to shift my appearance or dissolve anything with my saliva. But I managed to find a way to distinguish myself,” Bradley monologued. If there weren’t swords stuck into him, Greed would have rolled his eyes. But then, the implication of the fuhrer’s words hit him, and his eyes widened instead.

“You’re - you’re -” he stuttered.

“Any weakness you might have can be seen with my ultimate eye,” Wrath continued as if he didn’t even hear the ultimate shield speak.

“What the hell do you want with me?” Greed managed to stutter out, blood trickling from his mouth. He gritted his teeth and thought of his underlings. Of Martel, Roa, Dolcetto, and Bido, his own little ragtag family. It wasn’t over; his existence couldn’t end like this. There was no way Father’s Wrath was going to win.

Deciding his question was worthy of an answer, Wrath said, “It’s not me that wants anything with you. It would be in your best interest to simply come with me, though. I was told to bring you back alive or as the stone that makes up your being. I’m content with either.”

Greed attempted to swallow around the swords lodged in his throat. It was pointless.

“You might want to take a good look around as we head back to Central,” Wrath said. “It may be the last time you see the outside.”

[yehosera]

Winter Cup 2017

This article will look at the Winter Cup and give an in depth look at the deck that I chose to play during the event. Along with a large section talking about how amazing team Dark Sphere is at winning raffles.

Winter Cup

This was a 2 day event ran at Firestorm games in Cardiff. 160 players took part in 8 rounds of best of 1 swiss during day 1, with the top 8 going through to day 2. Day 2 was best of 3 single elimination. There was no stream for day 1, however, day 2 was streamed.

Stream

Top Cut - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INoSTuTQTn8

Lightning/Wind (Al-)Cid Raines & Co.

https://ffdecks.com/deck/5936600785616896

--Generated By FF Decks (www.ffdecks.com)--

Deck Name: 3rd place Winter Cup

Created by: yehosera

Forwards (26):

1 Kefka (4-147)

2 Rygdea (1-211)

2 Black Waltz 3 (4-102)

3 Onion Knight (1-125)

3 Al-Cid (2-097)

1 Angeal Penance (3-099)

3 Orlandeau (4-101)

2 Y'shtola (1-084)

3 Barbariccia (3-066)

3 Moogle (4-069)

3 Onion Knight (4-054)

Summons (2):

1 Raiden (4-114)

1 Alexander (4-052)

Monsters (5):

2 Dragon (4-106)

3 Cactuar (4-058)

Backups (17):

1 Black Mage (1-130)

1 Black Mage (2-108)

1 Black Mage (3-107)

1 Magus (4-113)

2 Red Mage (1-121)

1 Gramis (2-106)

1 Seymour (1-137)

3 Archer (1-088)

1 Archer (4-070)

1 Oracle (3-070)

2 Aerith (1-064)

1 Nono (4-066)

1 Maria (1-083)

Swiss

Round 1 - Lightning/Wind. I was rather surprised to be playing a mirror match round 1. The mirror is rather easy, due to the existence of Moogle in the deck. Generally speaking, being 1st onto the board in any lightning based mirror match is a disaster. Due to how reactive most of lightning's cards are, giving the opponent a target to remove is simply turning on most of their, otherwise, dead cards. However, because Moogle both draws a card on entry and upon exit, by playing the Moogle and making their cards live, the player has in turn made their own cards live at a very low cost. This is because the opponent must play forwards to handle Moogle, thus giving the player targets for their cards. In a battle like this, where both players are clearing until one player runs out of removal options, playing a card like Moogle that grants the player 2 cards is an exceptional boon.

Round 2 - Mono Water. This game started off fine, despite the opponent playing a copy of Minwu. Simply clear and develop the board. I had them in a near checkmate situation, whereby I had 5 forwards on board and them on 5 damage. However, due to seeing a copy of Cagnazzo in the breakzone and a copy of Cagnazzo had just been sent to the bottom of the deck via Relm's effect, I was negligent and did not Archer away their Scholar nor leave up CP to use Cactuar's effect. Thus letting them get back into the game via a Cagnazzo Scholar play clearing all 5 of my forwards.

Round 3 - Water/Earth. Both players started rather poorly. However, in a game where both players open weak and one player has to play a forward (in this case, Guy) vs a lightning player. There's a really neat little card called Al-Cid that propels the lightning player several steps ahead. There was a Shantotto, later on into the game, however, it was all too little too late.

Round 4 - Ice/Fire. Finally, a matchup I was favoured in. The player knew my name from the Yu-Gi-Oh scene so that was a nice surprise! They also went onto win the Snowball cup during day 2. The game was fairly simple, they played some FFVI forwards, I cleared some FFVI forwards, they ran out of FFVI forwards to play and died.

Round 5 - Mono Fire. Unfortunately I ran into a good friend Rob Dupre during this round. He played a strong game, however, due to the nature of the matchup as long as I handle his Emperor Xande without losing 3 forwards it's a rather simple matchup to win. Archer (4-070) was a really big help in letting Orlandeau + Cactuar trade into a Xande that had been gives Blias, the Gigas' buff.

Round 6 - Ice/Fire. Simon Drake, 1st time we had actually played each other despite seeing each other at events before hand. He drew poorly and well, Lightning/Wind is really really good at killing players that play forwards on turn 1-2.

Round 7 - Mono Lightning. This player also finished 3rd, I would've liked to have seen him in the finals just to show that Mono Water can bleed, but oh well. Like any Lightning based matchup, I started off with a Moogle (after reaching 2 backups). I was also fortunate enough to draw a Maria who helps a lot vs mono colour decks (due to them all playing anthem cards). At this point, I had gambled that he would not remove the Moogle and would rather develop more backups, as I did not actually have a way of handling his Al-Cid in my hand at the time. However, he was a brave player and simply killed the Moogle with Al-Cid + Onion Knight. I drew my cards and still had no answer to the Al-Cid, so I played another Moogle and a backup. Hoping that there was no Amon to handle this Moogle. I have to stop the bleeding before it begins vs a mono lightning player that has a Red Mage. However, there was an Amon. This puts me under a lot of pressure to handle the board as I'm effectively dead next turn. My following turn takes a long time, as I'm desperately trying to find a way of handling all 3 forwards. However, the best I can do is 2 of them with the help of Onion Knight (4-054), Cactuar and Seymour to clean out the Amon and an Onion Knight. My hand had in it a Black Waltz 2 and a copy of Rygdea, putting me 2k damage short of clearing all 3 or some CP short (if I used the Cactuar 10,000 damage ability). From here, a copy of The Emperor was played by the opponent. Having expired my hand to clear the pressure, I was left with no answer to this card. This card dealt 3 points of damage on it's own and killed about 5 forwards (I did not want to go up to 6 damage so started putting fodder in it's path). Thankfully, I drew a copy of Kefka eventually. What this did was set up a gamble whereby only Amon killed me. Due to him being on 4 backups, there was not enough CP avaliable to him during his next turn to play an additional backup and Edea and haste her. So, I took the risk. If he has no copy of Amon, the Emperor will not attack and I'll be able to cast Al-Cid on it. Thankfully he simply played Arc Angel EV and passed. I played the swiftest Al-Cid of my life on that Emperor, then used Dragon to clean up the EV. Used Kefka to turn 2 copies of Cactuar into forwards and put myself solidly into the driver's seat. The opponent played another copy of the Emperor, however, that was not enough to stop the onslaught from Barbaricia and Angeal Penance. Putting him to 6 damage and forcing the Emperor to block the last attack. Thus granting me a rather hard victory.

Round 8 - Mono Water. This game went smoothly. The gameplan is simple, play Moogle early. When they respond with forwards, kill the forwards and snowball that to victory. I played a Moogle, he responded with Garnet + Zidane, I played Al-Cid, Rygdea and Seymour. This put him to 6 damage exceptionally quickly and allowed me to gain advantage every battle phase until he decked out.

This result meant that I placed 4th with a record of 7-1.

Top 8

Round 1 - Mono Water. Turns out I'd played against the guy on OCTGN before, so it was nice to meet him in person. Both games were simple, apply too much pressure during the early turns then starve them on resources. Mono Water REALLY does not like being on 2-3 backups and thrives on 4-5. By applying forward based pressure early, you can disrupt the turns that they would otherwise spend developing backups making it extremely taxing on their hand to both answer your forwards and develop backups.

Round 2 - Mono Water. Game 1, I opened REALLY slowly and ended up being the defensive player. There was a window to turn the game around after Raiden landed on both The Emperor and Cecil, however, I made a blunder. I'm fairly certain the game was lost, but, during the last turn I summoned a Moogle leaving open a Black Mage (3-107) instead of leaving open Black Mage and Archer (1-088). This would've let me draw into Al-Cid (which I did), Archer his Minwu and cast Al-Cid to clean up a forward. However, this was still probably too little too late (as he had 3 forwards at the time). However, this is still something I should have thought about. Game 2 was simple, played 2 backups, then a Moogle. When he answered with a foward, Orlandeau + Cactuar cleared it up then cleaned up his remaining life total. Game 3 was a close one. I opened weak and ended up playing a Rygdea on turn 2. The key point about this game was that I did not draw a copy of Barbaricia. It was very back and forth, however, missing out on Barbaricia the whole game meant that finally once his Cecil Minwu Emperor set up came about, there was nothing left to clear the two forwards (as Raiden had been used). Thus making for a 7-6 loss in the end.

The Deck

Forwards

Every forward in the deck exists to kill other forwards except for Kefka and Moogle, and both of those cards help the player find ways of killing forwards anyway.

The new Goon Squad.

Al-Cid, Onion Knight, Rygdea and Black Waltz 2. Cheap efficient removal. There's not much to say about them, other that you should protect these cards. Once they are on the board, contrary to popular opinion, they are worth defending with Dragons Archers etc. These are the main sources of repetitive damage in the deck, without them dealing 7 damage takes a long time and gives the opponent more chances to draw outs. Black Waltz 2 should be put up to 3 copies if space is found. This card is fantastic vs mono Water and is the highest value forward out of the lot of them.

Orlandeau. This card is fantastic with Cactuar on the field. Big 9,000 power forward that on entry removes another forward. The value this card can get is insane. Coupled with Shadow Blade being an exceptionally difficult ability to play around. In the Swiss portion, Shadow Blade picked up a 2 for 1 vs ice due to the -7k simply killing a forward and once untapped being able to block. This card is simply insane.

Angeal Penance. This card is basically a 4th copy of Oralndeau. However, it went above and beyond that. The fact that Angeal can be played onto an empty board is a massive boon for the card in comparison to Orlandeau. Also, Angeal is really good at swinging tempo back into the player's favour. In a situation whereby 1-2 forwards have just attacked the player, being able to attack and then clear one of the forwards whilst dealing a damage helps the lightning player return back to being the aggressor. In addition, any weaker active forwards have to block Angeal letting the card generate value in that sense. One thing to watch out for, is Angeal will break itself or other forwards you control as the break effect is mandatory. For example, Onion Knight (4-054) also has a mandatory damaging effect, so on an empty board these two characters cannot attack without one of them being broken.

Y'shtola. Despite the merit the card should have in a damage deck, this card was weak. Dying to basically everything, even the on entry ability from Cagnazzo without a Scholar can kill her. This card can easily be swapped out for something else. 1 copy could maybe be retained within the deck, however, she was so low impact that when I was reciting the decklist from memory I was at 48 cards and couldn't remember the last 2 were her.

Barbariccia. Power house of the deck. The only weakness this card has, is that while an anthem card is in play Cactuar cannot oneshot a forward on it's own, a second copy has to be played. Would play 6 if possible.

Moogle. Fantastic card. Draws into Al-Cid parts. Can be cut down, however, due to how few forwards in this deck can be played without the opponent having a forward of their own, I would not cut this card down to 2. Would play 4 copies if possible. Also, this card is from the Chocobo Hunt game, so realistically if you're cutting this card from your deck you don't like fun.

Onion Knight. Carrylord, kills many cards. Would keep at 3. This card allows the player to discard copies of the other Onion Knight early and reclaim them later on into the game to fuel Al-Cid later on in the game.

Kefka. Searches Cactuar. Would not play more copies. Could consider playing fewer copies, however, Cactuar is what makes this deck viable, as such, playing a search card for Cactuar makes a lot of sense.

Summons

Alexander. Card was poop. One time it draw a Raiden. That was nice.

Raiden. Card was the opposite of poop. One time it kill and Emperor and a Cecil. That was nice. This card can go to 2 or even 3 copies.

Monsters

Dragon. It's a nice card to have, I can't really judge on how many copies are nice to play. However, at 2 this card was fine. Sometimes I wanted 3, other times I wanted 0. 1 however, is not right. Gets around cards like Garnet that cannot be targeted by summons, also is cheaper than Odin, however, the Emperor turns Dragon off. Overall, it's just hard to say really. 0 is probably fine, however, so might 3.

Cactuar. Cheat and sneak 5 copies in.

Backups

The first thing to note about the backups, there are 10 singletons. Every named or situational backup is a singleton. This gives the deck a lot of options in what it wants to see on it's backup line. So, vs a Minwu deck, there aren't 3 copies of Magus/Black Mage (1-130) which are useless vs that deck. This gives the player a chance at drawing the perfect backups, while lowering the chances of drawing a more stable set. E.g. vs Ice, there's a copy of Oracle, so there's a chance of having an Oracle vs an Ice deck, however, the player won't draw it vs every Ice player they play vs Ice. This also means, that vs decks that Oracle is not so good vs Oracle will not be drawn every game.

Red Mage. Should have been a 3 of. Magus is actual poop.

Archer (1-088). Amazing 3 of, good vs just about everything. Whenever the player is on 5 backups, the card has an unsituational break itself effect to make room for others and can colour screw the opponent.

Archer (4-070). Has a very nice effect, when timed well can be amazing. On the simplest level, the card lets your forwards with equal power to the opposing forwards destroy them at the cost of a backup. Worth keeping.

Oracle (3-070). Has some synergies with other cards in the deck, but is mostly in there to combat Ice and Lightning's dull effects. If these colours aren't much of a problem it can be removed, however, late game when the board states are very complex, this card gives the opponent a lot to think about. In addition, during high damage situations (5 damage a piece) this card promotes blocking from the opponent, which is helpful as this lets lone goons pick off the defenders.

Aerith. This card can come out. Was in there to help with Lightning, Ice and Fire. However, these matchups are all pretty easy even without Planet Protector. The one real upside to this card is that with 3 backups Aerith costs 0 CP. Aerith into any other card is a lot of advantage (especially Aerith into Kefka). I would not play more copies of her nor any less, either 2 or 0.

Nono. Amazing card. With Red Mage this card is capable of dealing insane damage from nowhere. Where this card really shines is that while being the aggressor, the player gains as many backups as forwards that are currently able to attack. Thus turning a situation whereby the player has summoned some goons into not only a board advantage but also a CP advantage.

Maria. Mostly there to help deal with anthem decks. This card is not needed to win any matchup, but it's also nice to have.

Black Mage (1-130). Helps push for lethal or clear a forward while there's nothing in hand that can clear. There are so many effects similar to this one in the deck it might not be needed, however, it's nice to have.

Black Mage (2-108). This card is really good at pushing damage or clearing damaged forwards. Well worth keeping, however, if there are not many Minwu decks it can be cut.

Black Mage (3-107). Clears problematic forwards (Ashe, Garnet, Cagnazzo, Rosso).

Magus. Poop.

Gramis. Fetches Al-Cid. Balthier might be worth considering or a singleton of Vaan, however, those cards are all too slow for what this deck wants to be doing.

Seymour. Kills the same problem cards Black Mage (3-107) does.

Mandatory Backups

Archer (1-088)

Red Mage

Gramis

Nono

Seymour

Personal Preferance Backups

Aerith

Maria

Flex Slots

Archer (4-070)

Black Mages

Oracle

Poop Slots

Magus

Mix and match between any of the standard unit 2 cost backups in the flex slot spot and any in existence. Tailor those to what cards you expect to be having troubles with. Personal Preferance slots are for whatever backups you like or can be devoted to extra flex slots. Poop slots are to be swapped for Red Mage. Then Mandatory backups obviously are mandatory and shouldn't be cut.

Final Thoughts

Turns out Dark Sphere are raffle Gods. As we picked up like half the prizes and even the raffle box. The event was amazing, everyone was friendly and I almost missed top 8 due to how fun Dissidia was to play. Turns out not everyone was cool with simply dropping and playing Dissidia. The Chocobo Hunt game that was being demo'd is also fantastic and well worth playing. Much fun was had there. Finally, I was really happy to see Robert Phillips also make top 8 playing the exact same deck. We really did not expect that much Mono Water (hence why so much of the deck targets Fire Ice and Lightning decks), but still managed to climb to top 8.

TL;DR Moogle has some pretty neat lines of text