The Light's 1K EventPhoto credit to The Light's Gregory Cole
40 players. 6 Rounds Swiss. Top 8 Bo3.
This local event was held the day before Winter Cup and it went really smoothly, despite the last minute location changes due to current events with COVID. Timing in between Swiss rounds were quick. I'm glad I got to chat with Nick from Vegas and Dan Nguyen before the tournament started.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to practice at all for this event, and the results pretty much showed it at 1-5. 🙄
Round 1 - Agrias Deck
I never beat this deck. Never. At least when I play against Arvin. But I believe I had the right counters at the right time for this match, so I somehow made the win. 😊 My opponent was from Texas so it's always fun to converse with travelers to these events.
Round 2 - Mono Lightning
I was pretty livid that we went to time and I would've won given a few extra turns. For some reason, that usually is the case with my games that go to time. I'm a slow thinker/player, especially right now when I'm not playing as much as I used to, so I try to play fast since I was running a control deck. Unfortunately, my opponent was slow too, and also had to stop and read the cards and ask what they do. 😑 Whatever, for these matchups, it's expected going to time. However, it was the end of the game that reallllly irked me. It was pretty clear that I would've won with another turn or two, but my opponent wouldn't concede despite me pointing it out several times on my turn 3. Double loss helps neither of us, so I just had to concede to continue the event.
Round 3 - 5
I'm just gonna summarize the next three rounds into one since they were all losses to Ranperre decks... 😑 Enough said. 🙄
Round 6
I was playing against an ice deck. I forgot if there was another element in there. We went to time, which was expected with my opponent. I actually had game on Turn 3 but misplayed when I rushed the turn. Whoops. I needed that Diabolos for wind CP for Cid (FFBE) special. I don't think either of us cared at that point whether we lost or not given our records. I was more upset that I couldn't do the Cid special. I rarely get to do that Special! 😓 I am glad that this match didn't matter though, because despite my misplay and clear soon to be win, my opponent didn't concede either. 😑 That's just something to take note in the future should I play him again in tourneys, which is actually pretty often. This player often goes to time too. 😑
Raffle Prizes
Greg Cole absolutely delivered on this part of the tournament. Many were given out in between Swiss rounds. The method of delivery and choosing winners though may have been questionable, but it was different and fun from how other events do them and everyone got a prize anyway. Greg or a friend he'd ask would ask FF trivia or ask who are the biggest fans of something, like an FF game or the merch companies like Ultra Pro and Katana. I got a pack of Ultra Pro Eclipse Green sleeves when he asked who were the biggest Ultra Pro sleeves fan. I use standard clear UP sleeves for both my collection and for my decks, so I buy them in bulk. 😊 He did the same right after for Katana sleeves and handed several of those out as well. Lots of other merch were given, UP merch thanks to Meta Potion, as well as some more FF merch like sleeves and deck boxes.
Top 8 Decklists on FFDecksTop Cut
Top Cut included all the big competitive players in the community, so Top Cut isn't entirely that hype and enticing for these guys since it's pretty normal for them to top. Instead of playing it out, they decided to just dice roll for the win so we could end the event and eat dinner. I think we ended the event at 4pm? That's a record ending early time. 😆
Participation Prizes
Greg once again delivered majorly when the participation promos were given at the end of the event. Sealed stacks of promos were given out to everyone, which is extremely generous. On top of that, Greg announced that due to everyone's sacrifice of money, time, effort, and safety to attend this event, he gave all of us free entry to his next big event. 😯 Talk about major value for the attendees.
Streams can be watched on
The Light's FB PageStream #1Stream #2Award CeremonyDinner
All were invited for a AYCE KBBQ dinner afterwards. I went with that while another group went with Pho. 😋 The guys ordered beer towers, but I don't really drink.. 🙄 Whatever. Misplay on them for drinking at an AYCE restaurant. I saved all my stomach space for food. 😏 For dessert, we went to a boba shop. I love tea shops. I splurged on a matcha Red bean smoothie. 😋
Photo credit to Meta Potion
Got home at 9:30pm and quickly knocked out. Shout-out again to the top cut players. I'm really thankful that they dice rolled top cut so that we could all do other stuff for the rest of the day and get home early to rest for the Winter Cup the next day. 😊
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Winter Cup Around 99 players? 7 rounds of Swiss. Top 8 Bo3 matches.
Photo credit to Cardforge Gaming
Entry Swag with Top 64 Prizing (A-004 Promo and Reynn sleeves)
WoFF Playmat
Zack Fan Event 2020 Full Art Promo
Star Sibyl Full Art Promo
Random Signed Promo from Kageyama
One Raffle Ticket
Raffles
Every Swiss win earned you an extra raffle ticket. Lots of goodies were raffled off, like Bring Arts figures, Ultra Pro merch, FF Swag, and more. Unfortunately, I didn't win anything. It's pretty difficult to go up against people who collected tickets from other people that left early. 😥
Swiss Matches
Round 1 Win - Alex from Texas with Mono Fire
Feelsbadman. Super one-sided win for me, even with a second funsies match. At least we both discussed our similar interest in the FFVII deck and play styles afterwards, so we ended on a good note.
Repair since they recorded my results incorrectly. I swear, I wrote the match slip correctly! 😄
Round 2 Loss - Kyle Peters with Ranperre
Uhh... Yeah. Reading cards is probably a good idea. I completely forgot about Ardyn's built in setback. He can't block. 😑 The whole game I had a whole mess of Forwards thinking that I couldn't attack. It gave him time to setup and overwhelm me. I believe I would've won this game had I remembered Ardyn's abilities. He played him really early and it took him some time to set up. I would've rushed him out before he could pull off any Ranperre shenanigans. Whoops. 🤷
Round 3 Loss - Mono Lightning
I'm not aggressive enough, which was my downfall for this match. Note to self: read backups. I forgot about the moogle +1k pump. Whoops. 🙄
Round 4 Win - FFXV Mono Earth
XV package can be pretty quick to pump out Forwards. I'm glad that I was able to break at least one Forward a turn, until I was setup to break multiple Forwards a turn later on. An Ardyn midway through game was a bit scary as I hadn't built up much resources yet. But I learned from my Round 2 match and knew how to deal with him. It actually came down to my opponent playing 4 Forwards, so I Prompto'd his board to go for game. 😊
Round 5 Loss - Lexi from Texas Lighting Wind
This was a big counter deck against my deck. Zidane was the biggest troll since he's an unblockable and can't be damaged by abilities. 🙄 It's still a treat to play with Lexi though. I love looking at her FF Tactics playmat. 😊
Round 6 Win - Sherry with Fire Ice
I took too much damage early on so I had real trouble when she played Hein at midway damage. In the end, I believe she misplayed with Hein. She definitely would've won this match if she hadn't done that.
Round 7 - Lisa from Texas with Rainbow Deck
Definitely a tainted victory. I think she played Feolthanos turn two. He shuts down my whole deck, so I just had to play many bodies and try to go though quick damage. Unfortunately, both of us forgot about Feolthanos protection, so I got value off of getting Zack in play and killing Citra. It was too late to rewind too. We didn't really call a judge either since our records didn't matter too much. We both only wanted Top 64. She had a better chance of still getting Top 64 even with a loss. I was on the bottom of my tier, so it's possible I could've bubbled out with a loss. For the second funsies match, I won a clean win, so we both felt better about the situation. Lol. Thankfully, she also got Top 64. 😊
Swiss Record
Top 16
They called out Top 16 and gave prizing to them. Unfortunately, I don't know what it was. It may have been a promo card, but that's just my guess. 🤷
And then we had 20 minutes break until Top 8 started. I talked a bit with the lone Portland guy and invited him to eat lunch with us, but we got separated. I had "lunch" with Sherry, Alex, and Kenny, but I had to order takeout food for Arvin and Richard in Top 8, so I didn't stay with them for too long. When I got back, I participated in Wolves' Den until closing. It wasn't too long as I was only able to get four games in.
Top 8 Decklists on FF DecksTop 8 Prizing
Top 4
Wolves' Den
This started a few rounds into Swiss. This side event wasn't very active due to how many people were aiming for Top 64. The critical feedback posted below delves more into the issues. After Swiss was over, there was only a few hours left of Wolves Den since it ended before Top 4 started. Thanks to Bryan Hefner for playing a match with me. He was about to leave but I snagged him for one match. 😏 Then Kenny and I just jammed in WoFF games. I think one of us definitely could've easily won the WoFF achievement had we started playing earlier. Prizing similar to the raffle prizes was given out for each achievement. Winners got to choose a prize from the pool instead of having designated prizes for each achievement.
Critical Feedback
The major hiccup for this event was the miscommunication of the promised prizing for Top 64. On the Cardforge Gaming page, the prizing was listed correctly, but on the official FFTCG NA Facebook Page, two Zack promos were supposed to be included in the Top 64 prizing. Most of the community/attendees follow the SE page, not a local store FB page, and would see the announcement and base the prizing info on that. It's because of this that many people had to "force" themselves to stay in the tournament to get the 3 or 4 wins to get into Top 64. Usually, several people drop the tournament when they know they can't top or, in a special event like this, prefer to play in the side events (Wolves Den). So you can understand the huge disappointment/frustration for many people that the promised prizing wasn't going to be honored, nor was there any compensation.
Wolves Den was closed too early imo right before Top 4 started. We had only an hour or two to play in the Wolves Den for the most of us that were committed in finishing the tourney for the Top 64 prizing. It made it much more harder for us to get the achievements, especially since 5/7 of them were cumulative achievements.
It was also really disheartening when I heard that someone from the event organizers team prevented my friend from participating in the Wolves Den in between rounds of the Swiss tournaments. This was all to "give priority to people who aren't topping and dropped the tourney" and "the next round was going to start soon." Space was no issue as there were only two other people playing in Wolves Den at the time. Time wasn't either because there was a lot of time in between matches. She waited another 10 minutes until the next round started. 😑
I think Wolves Den is just a side event that I can never be content with, given its past history of being unable to deliver fairness and full support. Anyone can cheat their way into the achievements since judges/organizers don't exactly follow the participants. Anyone can inflate their numbers with their friends matches and/or ask their opponent to not play a "real match" and just let them get the highest achievement. We have rules in place for competitive tournaments that you can't talk to your opponent about conceding the match or whatever. I think the same should be applied in Wolves Den, but because it's a casual side event, it's not a priority for event organizers. If there's some real big prizing at a Wolves Den event, which there always is, then I'd expect for event organizers to at least provide more support for this side event and be more strict and not allow cheating.
Raffle tickets are an issue when people give theirs away when they leave early. I think putting your name in a bucket would've been more fair to those that stayed. But then again, there's the issue of drawing into so many names for people that left already. 🤷 I just know that I'm not a big fan of this raffle format. While it does reward more to those that continue to do better in the tournament, it takes away from those that can't. The Top 64 was already in place to reward those who do better. Raffle prizing should be kept to one entry per person imo and give others that usually don't do well in tournaments a chance at prizes.
Ending Note and Special Thanks
All of my feedback doesn't take away from the fact that this was a great weekend, probably the last one for a while. 🙄 Both events were ran really well, especially with the hurdles that both events had to come over to even run them. I say this every time, but it's always a treat to meet with the community and see old and new faces.
Thanks to the judges David "White Mage" Nunez, Genesis Angel Cisneros for doing both events, and Matthew Okimoto for doing the Winter Cup. Thanks to Brian Burckley for commentating Winter Cup. It's tough to give up your playing spot to fill in these roles. Thanks to Nicki Neal and Cardforge Gaming for hosting and running the event. Thanks to Square Enix for providing the cancelled Fan Fair prizing for this event, as well as Kageyama for sending signed promos for everyone to make up for the Fan Fair cancellation.
