40 Hours in Florida - A Reunion Tale

I never imagined I'd be traveling across the country to compete in a card tournament.

The Journey

I've played card games for 23 years now, from Overpower to Decipher's Star Wars and Star Trek games, Lord of the Rings, and so on.  The 'meta' was always myself and my friends, we never went to card shops for tournaments and the vast majority of my games throughout the years were against my best friend.  Almost two years ago in the Spring of 2017 that all changed when I attended my first FFTCG tournament at Isle of Gamers in Santa Clara, CA.  In FFTCG I discovered a whole new community and made a wealth of new friends.

Never would I have guessed that over those next two years I would end up taking the reins of a local circuit and helping to guide it into a regular fixture of the local community.  Never imagined commentating matches and having people from across the U.S. (and the world?!?) watching and listening.  I certainly couldn't imagine having the opportunity of a lifetime to work with Square Enix, the company behind an essential part of my childhood, to commentate 3 Crystal Cups in North America's first competitive season of FFTCG.  Going to Collector's Cache in Kansas City, Card Game Coliseum in Southern California, and GenCon were mindblowing experiences.

Yet as I sat on the plane that would take me to a fantastic weekend in Florida, it all felt surreal.  Some of that....may have been from sleep deprivation.  I am NOT a morning person, but to make the trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to Orlando I needed to wake up at 4:30am to catch a 5:30am Lyft to the airport for a 6:55am flight after a night of making sure everything was packed and that my deck was tweaked and resleeved (had to represent with my Aerith sleeves!).

With no traffic that early, and the fact that nobody in their right mind is at an airport at 6am, I flew through security and was at the gate in no time.  When it came time to board, we were all lined up before they discovered a snag, somehow our plane had ended up swapped with the plane at another gate.  As a result, we all had to take a brisk walk oh......10 gates away to get on the right plane!  "Things not going exactly to plan" would end up being QUITE the foreshadowing of my tournament experience the next day. 

Presumably these planes are at the correct gates.

A short 1 hour flight got me in to San Diego where my REAL trip across the country would begin.  We had the right plane at the gate so things were already looking up!  After getting boarded and settled in, we queued on the runway until takeoff was imminent, and then heard a call over the intercom.  "Sorry for the delay, we just had an indicator light come on and are checking in with Dallas to run diagnostics and see if we can get things worked out."  Hmm, NOT my day for flying it would seem.  Since we were holding up the queue, they basically had to do the airplane equivalent of 'pulling over to the shoulder', which was rather amusing if I'm honest.  I spent the next few minutes having an internal debate between being annoyed at the delay, but REALLY wanting them to make sure all those fancy airplane systems were working as intended before we were several thousand feet in the air.

The Arrival

But hey, you're not reading this article for stories about the woes of air travel!  Everything other part of the trip East ran smoothly, I got from Orlando to Lake Mary at around 6pm and met up with the man himself, James Lockwood.  Everyone has been giving him well-deserved praise ever since the weekend of Reunion and the whole event really was a testament to his work and dedication to the FFTCG community.  I do have extra reason to be thankful to Mr. Lockwood though, because he let me into the gates of Ivalice and gave me shelter for the weekend.  Seriously, the only reason I could even afford to make the trip to Reunion was that he and Kayla very generously offered to let me stay with them and I am eternally grateful and humbled that they let me into their home.  I'm pretty sure everyone knows that James and Kayla are good people, but DAMN, they are good people.

Is this reserved for James Lockwood......or James Lockwoool?  

Friday night was all about dinner at 4th St. Bar and Grill.  Us card geeks had reserved and taken over the outside patio and although we would be competitors the next day, we bonded over food, drinks, jokes and great conversation.  I even got to catch up with fellow Californian Sean Cole who I hadn't seen in almost a year.  A short while into dinner we were also joined by all-around-fantastic-person Richie Brady!  The table spent some time musing on our theories and expectations for Opus VIII (when we weren't discussing Sense8 or The Good Place), and if you haven't experienced this before, Richie is just as cryptic in real life as they are on Facebook when it comes to the secrets of the future of FFTCG.

Nothing beats great food and great conversation with your people.

Dinner was vanquished and we found our way back to Ivalice to prepare, practice and grind it out as long as we could.  Wait.....no, we just played 7-player Smash Bros. and Richie destroyed all of us on a pretty regular basis.  That's WAY more fun!  I did manage to sneak in a couple games with my deck against James and Richie before the night was through though.

Who DOESN'T want to play Smash in a room with this decor!?!

The Pseudonym

Then came the day.  7AM.  Reunion was upon us.  And we were tired.  And I was still on California time.  By the time we arrived at the venue there was already a small crowd ready to go.  There was a LOT of work to do in a short period of time to get the event up and running and James and Kayla's team deserve a ton of credit for getting it all operational so quickly.  There were tables to to set up, table markers to assemble, prizes to arrange, a computer to set up, get the streaming rig operational, haul in enough drinks to keep a small gamer army hydrated, an obscene amount of rares and commons to put out for free and hope they'd all disappear by day's end......(James was very adamant that he did NOT want to haul these cards back home).  It's very easy for events of any size to go off-schedule very quickly with all of the moving parts and the Lockwood's team kept the trains running pretty much on-time.

Team Ivalice in the back getting all the important stuff done!

Next thing I knew, it was time for constructed.  We listened to announcements, wished Matthew Rice a Happy Birthday and waited for first round pairings as judges Max Williams and Jason Toro did their magic.  Pairings were posted, the room buzzed with the excitement of possibility as everyone was still a contender and as I gazed at the spread of several pages of pairings, my name wasn't among them.  Despite the list being in alphabetical order, I methodically looked through them all to make sure I wasn't deceived (Spoiler Alert:  I wasn't).  Almost everyone had found their first opponent and was seated by the time I got Max's attention to let him know that I wasn't on the list.  He told me we'd figure something out after he got things rolling for Round 1.

I want to take a moment to say that I don't blame Max, Jason, or anyone involved with organizing the tournament for the snafu.  Corraling 92 players for a tournament is no joke, and mistakes will happen, especially when several people are involved with different parts of the process.  I've used Square Enix's tournament software for the circuit we run and I knew immediately that this wasn't going to be an easy fix.  There is no way to add somebody in once the first round pairings have been determined, and you can't manually set pairings for a round so it wouldn't be possible to start the tournament fresh in the system with the same pairings we had already run to add me in at the ground level.  The only solution available was to have me play in the place of somebody who was in the system already but didn't want to play in constructed.  We had somebody who was in just that situation ----- and that is how I became Blake-For-A-Day.  This meant that despite 5-10 minutes passing in the round already, I now had an opponent, and my tournament could begin.  First Up:  Andy 'Manderville Man' Carmona.

The Battle(s)

I come from California, home of the Dragoons.

Round 1 - Andy Carmona

I was a bit frazzled from all the uncertainty that had just gone down and I'm sure that didn't help my concentration or my wits in this first round.  Luckily Andy is such a nice guy and pleasure to be around whether the game is going your way or not.  Which is good because this round did NOT start off well.  The deck I brought is the latest edition of an Earth/Wind Standard Unit deck I have been playing for a year or more now.  It uses Maria, Enna Kros and Arc to stack up power boosts so that I can have Forwards like WRO Member, Pugilist, Dark Knight, and Bahamutian Soldier easily get to 8k, 9k, 10k+ for only 2CP each while using Opus 2 Ingus, 6CP Warrior of Light and Wol as support.  My opening hand against Andy had zero backups, so I mulliganed into ANOTHER zero-backup hand (the deck runs 18 backups).  My opening draw didn't save me and the best option I had with what was in my hand was a Turn-1 Wol play.  I wasn't thrilled.  I believe by turn 2 or 3 I overpayed to play Enna Kros as my only backup out of desperation.  This deck wants to build up but was forced into playing much more aggro than I am comfortable with.  Andy was on Wind/Water using Yuri/Chelinka and was easily able to set up his engine to handle any of the forwards I put out.  I got utterly (Manderville)manhandled on the way to a 7-4 loss, but true to his title Andy was a complete Gentleman about it.

These Illua playmats are gorgeous, and I needed to step it up if I wanted to go home with one.

Round 2 - Genesis Cisneros

If it was THIS Y'shtola hitting me I might not have minded as much.

A true testament to the success of Reunion bringing in the broader community was how often I looked at my opponent on the pairings list and recognized them from the Facebook groups, and such was the case with Genesis.  He seemed pretty quiet and polite when I met him, I think I heard later on that it was the first FFTCG event he had ever traveled to.   I gave him the spiel about how I wasn't Blake but I was indeed his opponent, the same spiel I had to give 7 times that day (#FakeBlake).  My opening hand this round went much better, I had backups I didn't have to overpay for!  Praise Altana.  However, Genesis played a Turn-1 Ghis/Y'shtola combo on me.  Apparently this time HE was the one who wasn't drawing the backups he needed, as I believe his Wind/Water deck wasn't intended to be that aggressive.  I took a turn or two to try to get backups in place because my forward options weren't big enough to stand up to them and got pounded on damage.  Eventually I was able to play an L Gabranth for 3CP and hoped it would provide enough of a wall to give me some breathing room, but he was swept aside by a Leviathan the next turn and the way was clear.  Eight minutes into the round I had taken a brutal 7-0 loss.  After two losses in two rounds, I was pretty much already out of Top 8 contention but I was there to play and was going to go the complete 8 rounds no matter what.  Since we still had so much time left before the next round, I asked Genesis if he wanted to play a second game and he kindly obliged.  It was a much less aggressive affair and I ended up getting a tiny 7-0 revenge against him.  I cursed my deck for not being able to do that when it counted.



Round 3 - Logan Blosser

I went into this round hopeful that things would start to turn around.  As long as nobody had to be unexpectedly aggressive it would all work out, right?  However, I was not at all expecting what Logan had in store for me.  In the first turn or two he plops down an Adelle and starts swinging away at me while I was setting up.  Another turn or two after that, Illua joined the fray.  That's right, this was an FFTA2 deck.  Even without buffs, my forwards can handle something the size of Illua so I was able to stem the bleeding there, but Adelle just kept crashing in as I went turn-after-turn unable to draw any of my removal options.  The one time I was stable enough to counterattack?  I hit an Opus VII Ramuh who promptly zapped my forward.  I'm sure there was a small grin under that majestic beard.  Another relatively quick 7-1 loss put me into an 0-3 hole to start Reunion, and that took the wind out of my sails.  As I did with Genesis, I asked Logan if he'd like to play another round and he took me up on it.  I sailed to a pretty easy 7-1 win in the second game.  I've always been completely fine with the 'Best of 1' system, but at this point I'm pretty certain my deck was saying 'are you sure about that?'

Prizing for Top 8, which I was no longer in contention for....but still good stuff!

Round 4 - Billy Jerome

After 3 rounds of losing in a variety of ways, I was now playing for pride.  If things turned around I could still go 5-3 and hold my head high, or 4-4 and walk away at .500.  But that needed to start somewhere and I needed SOMETHING to start going right.  Billy was on Mono Fire and he definitely played the part, putting pressure on me in various ways early on.  He played a Grenade in the first couple turns, and I wasn't too keen to see one of my not-yet-9k standard units blow up (much less one of my Warrior of Light trio).  Luckily, he didn't have any forwards out yet so I was able to build up backups the way my deck wants to.  An Enna Kros ensured that when I played Wol, he'd dodge the land mine on the field.  Shortly afterward Billy played an Emperor Xande and I probably was a bit too intimidated by it, but I didn't want to see it wreak havoc so the next turn after getting a point of damage in with Wol (+2k and no EX) I used Opus IV Hecatoncheir to wipe them both out and leave the field empty.  Eventually I did blow up the Grenade intentionally with an Opus 1 Dark Knight and wouldn't you know that Billy would play two more Grenades before the game was over.  A PSICOM Enforcer safely defused one for me (thank you Enna+Arc!) and I think I dodged the other one for the remainder of the round.  Finally I would get a point in the win column with a 7-4 victory.


Round 5 - Clarence Jones

Finally I had a win!  Despite being 1-3 I was ready to start getting the scales a bit more even and thought that my deck had gotten out of its funk.  I drew a pretty perfect backup curve for this round, a Necromancer into Enna Kros into Maria and things were rolling.  I noticed Clarence putting down a whole bunch of Moogle backups and went to Yellow Alert because I'd heard someone between rounds talking about a deck that was doing crazy stuff with Moogles (in retrspect, I'm pretty certain it wasn't him).  Turns out the Moogles would be the least of my troubles.  Clarence kept finding ways to remove the blockers I'd put out to get in a point or two of damage at a time with some tiny forwards, but I started to stabilize and get damage going back the other direction.  His deck was Fire/Water and by the midway point of the match his backup line was Opus 2 Montblanc, Horne, Artemicion and Moogle (THEATRHYTHM), but the REAL kicker was that he was playing Palom and Porom.  Late in the game I'm at 5 damage but I'm pretty sure in a turn or two I've got the win.  I've got about 4-5 forwards in play to his 1CP Porom and some other forward.  Two of my forwards had been played that turn so I attack a little conservatively to keep multiple blockers given that I've seen him be able to sweep them aside.  I get Clarence to 5 and try to end my Main Phase 2, but he uses L Phoenix to bring Opus 2 H Palom into play.  It only managed to kill one forward between the 15k damage (so many buffs!) so I'm feeling pretty okay about it as I pass turn.  I'm still astounded by the next sequence of events.  Clarence uses 1CP Porom's ability to break her and search for Opus 3 Porom to play on to the field.  Porom's auto ability goes on the stack (activate all your Forwards) and he responds to that ability by using Palom's Comet Special to deal 1 damage to me.  The auto-ability  then resolves and activates both Palom and Porom and he proceeds to Comet me AGAIN for the 7th point of damage.  I'm still in awe of this sequence of events to the point that it distracts me (thank the Twelve) from the embarassment of being beaten by a double Comet.  After the match I was lamenting to Clarence about not having a Hecatoncheir or something to remove one of the twins during that sequence, but he mentioned that he had a Porom or two in hand to use Curaga which would prevent damage to them if I'd tried that.  A 7-5 loss, but WHAT a loss it was.

All sorts of guides and goodies for the raffle.  Except Vincent, who was trying to escape the Prize Table.

Round 6 - Adam Lane

This was a pleasant surprise late in the day, as I'd never gotten a chance to meet Adam before and was looking forward to the opportunity as soon as I saw he was my opponent.  I'm sure anybody reading this knows who Adam Lane is, but just in case, you should go check out the RVA Returners, they're great guys who consistently put out fantastic content.  I explained to Adam that I was his opponent (#FakeBlake), he shared with me that he was having a rough day with a series of 7-6 losses, and we got started.  Turn 1 Adam puts down a Cid (II) and I immediately got flashbacks to GenCon.  I knew this was going to be a challenge and the see-saw nature of this match did not disappoint.  I managed to get my backup line going with 1 or 2 of the boosters, while Adam got an Opus VI Guy in play pretty early.  I managed to Hecatoncheir it at a point where his backups were dull and he only had a couple cards in hand, much to my relief.  At this point I managed to build an advantage with 3 or 4 big forwards on the field, I believe he had one at the most.  Cid II's versatility made an appearance as Adam searched for an Earth Evoker which allowed him to play a Shantotto (his Rebels deck was primarily Fire/Water I believe).  As we both started to rebuild I played a Spiceacilian (yup, that's right!), and Adam had the same reaction as every opponent I played it against that day - 'can I look at that?'.  With the addition of Bahamutian Soldier in Opus VII, when I was tweaking my deck I looked through what monsters would go well that weren't a one-time use monster or one that turned into a Forward, as I wanted it to stay on the field consistently.  I also needed to maintain a certain level of Wind cards because the deck uses very little of them (~12).  Spiceacilian seemed a great choice because of its free ability and the fact that I use so many 2CP forwards that it's a way to cheese in damage with weaker forwards  (Dark Knight is only 5k?  Go help yourself!).  So I got it out and was able to start pressuring with unblockable forwards until we were both at 6 damage.  Adam was able to rebuild post-Shantotto a lot better than I had been and soon I was looking at a field that included Guy, Vivi, Leila, Viking, and a freshly played Halicarnassus.  It was pretty intimidating.  I weathered the storm through some careful blocking as he pushed for that last point of damage, followed by breaking my Necromancer to bring back a WRO Member to the field during his Main Phase 2.  It came back to my turn with a measly 2 forwards but he didn't have any removal left and my WRO Member was able to ride Spicy right on in for the 7th point of damage.  It was probably the best match I played all day and Adam is a hell of a competitor, he definitely had some next-level plays going on.  I felt bad handing him yet another 7-6 loss but got a nice confidence boost going into Round 7 knowing that both me and my deck could grind it out.


Round 7 - George Pollock

At this point I'm still fighting to get back to a 4-4 record and maintain some dignity.  George was on a pretty standard Earth/Wind deck which I hadn't faced during the previous 6 rounds.  I had been expecting a LOT more Earth/Wind during the day, and perhaps I would've seen more if my first 3 games had gone better.  George got off to a great start with both Semih and Star Sibyl, so Kam'lanaut was inbound pretty quick.  I managed to hold steady though, my deck complied once more and I reached the point where he was forced to Shantotto to get a reset.  Part of what I love about my deck is that there are so many cheap forwards that if my backups are set I can rebuild with big forwards fairly quickly (and cheap!).  I had included 2 PSICOM Enforcers in the deck to tech against Dadaluma and finally was rewarded in this match, as he had 2 Cactuars and played a late Dadaluma post-Shantotto.  That turn he was able to chain the Cactuars with a Semih activation to take out one of my bigger forwards but my next turn I felt a deep satisfaction in playing the Enforcer to punt a Cactuar and mosly shut down that line of play.  Ended up taking the win on this one 7-5.

If James, Kayla, Mr. Foils or Freddie Mercury tell you to do something, you do it!

Round 8 - John Schreiner

At the beginning of the day we had been informed that we would be having 8 rounds of Swiss instead of the 7 rounds that would normally occur for a 92-player tournament.  The flip side of this was that there was only a Top 8 cut instead of Top 16.  So the bonus round matched me up against John, which would decide if I could pull back to a 4-4 finish to end the day.  Like several of my opponents I didn't know him or recognize his name but it turns out he's a really friendly guy and it was nice to finish things out against him.  Turn 1 I plopped down a Maria, discarding and Arc plus a Hecatoncheir to pay for it.  He gave me an interesting look in response, then I passed to him and on his first turn put down his OWN Arc, to our shared amusement.  We were probably the only two people in that room using Arc, by my guess.  By the time I had gotten a second backup out, he put on the pressure by playing a Paul (which gave me flashbacks to the Adelle debacle in Round 3).  Normally my deck is VERY well equipped to handle Paul because of the 10 or so 2CP forwards I run.  I played some standard unit or another but on his turn he was able to remove it and pop in for the damage plus milling 5 off of my deck.  I followed up with a 6CP Warrior of Light to return a Bahamutian Soldier into play.  It wasn't all that big but still more than enough to stand up agianst Paul.  On John's next turn Paul attacked again, and although I smelled a trap I needed to block.  Sure enough he had a Diabolos to eradicate Mr. Warrior and bring the Soldier to 1k without enough buffs online to get him up to Paul's level.  If I'm remembering correctly I followed that up with a Wol the next turn and a Hecatoncheir to rid myself of the Paul headache.  John had the chance to build up during these turns though and the economical advantages of Wind/Water overtook my efforts to rebuild.  I did manage to get a Spiceacilian out to push in a damage each turn, but he was able to make a strong enough final push to get me before I could close the deal (if only I had one more turn!).  Took a 7-6 loss to end the day and dash my dreams of getting back to .500.  Got to have a pleasant chat with John afterward about our respective decks though, and how his was based around having so many high-value targets that it's not possible to remove them all, and how his local community had been collectively cooking it up.  Definitely a cool dude that I'm glad I had a chance to meet.

I'm definitely disappointed in having gone 3-5, but was glad I almost pulled back to even considering the 0-3 and 1-4 deficits I fell in during the day.  Admittedly I didn't get to do the sort of prep and practice that I would've wanted to do in the days and weeks leading up to the tournament if I was really pushing to be as competitive as possible.  My wife and I have a 4-month old baby at home (Hi Ben!), and between caring for him during the day, working at night, organizing our Trials of the Zodiac Braves Circuit and trying to put out content for the Zodiac Braves.....not a lot of time left in the day!  However, this would not be the end of Reunion for me as James had arranged for both a Trivia event and the Draft side event.  The Top 8 decks needed to be checked, so it was Trivia Time!

Top 8 after Swiss, anyone who makes it through 92 players is a BEAST.

The Redemption, and The Culling

I ended up in the first Trivia 'pod' of 10 after a highly-entertaining sequence of people not listening to directions that saw us shoot up to 14 players, then down to 8, then back to 10.  Phones at the ready, we prepared for battle via 25 questions pulled from Final Fantasy Lore and FFTCG statistics.  The first handful of questions I breezed through with confidence and soon found my way to the top of the standings that were posted between each question.  Questions came and went but I would NOT be felled!  I was standing next to Florida's own Sam Prime and by about halfway through he joked 'who let this Jared guy play?!?'  One question did eventually stump me but I ended with 24/25 questions correct and atop the final standings, which won me 3 packs of Opus VII and my choice of a foil promo (Uh....Estinien.  Duh.  Easy choice.)  Sam asked me afterward which question I actually missed but I couldn't remember!  Since then I've discovered that all the questions are in the app on my phone so this one's for you Sam!:

What item is used to remove Blank's petrification in FFIX?

A.  Remedy
B.  Golden Needle
C.  Supersoft
D.  Ribbon

***Spoiler Alert***  I answered Golden Needle, but the real answer is Supersoft.  If anybody wants to test their knowledge I'll include the full list of 25 questions (and answer key) from my round of trivia at the bottom of the article.

I perform MUCH better under my own name, just sayin'.
Shout out to the Ranch Master, Hunter Nance as well as Myles Tyler and his unlimited supply of Hype.

That left only one item on the agenda for the day - Draft!  This was a standard Opus VII draft using regular (NOT Simplified) rules.  The main difference was that each pod was its own Single-Elimination bracket with the winner moving on to the Holy Grail of All-Star Draft that Richie Brady had put together.  Everyone was salivating over a chance to raid that Crystal Cube.  Going into the drafting portion though, I wasn't aware it would be single elimination instead of Swiss rounds.  If I had, I may have skipped playing since my experience doing standard drafts is literally two Opus II drafts I did about a year and a half ago. 

I knew going in to look out for cards like Snow or Lann that are powerhouses in Opus VII drafting.  I didn't see any of them in my packs and ended up leaning into my comfort zone with playing Earth for my picks.  For some reason it was raining Kolkas that day and I ended up drafting probably 3 and passing another 3 at least, but my 'secret weapon' was being able to pick up 3 Asmodai.  By the end of the 4th pack I had managed to pick up 25(!) Earth cards and felt pretty good about being able to abuse Asmodai while supporting it with a little bit of Ice and about 3 Lightning cards just to fill out the list of 40.  I picked up several Monks and Summoners to have big bodies even though I knew I wasn't likely to get off those extra abilities, since my understanding was that big bodies are a big deal in draft.  I certainly had plenty to go around.

Round 1 - David Melendez

To be honest, by this point in the day a lot of the game specifics are a blur for me.  I managed to get one backup of each element out relatively early which was fantastic considering I only ran 3 Lightning cards (Argy in draft just feels bad...).  David popped down a Xezat and I knew that was going to be a nightmare.  The following turn I had to take the damage from him but I had been holding on to an Asmodai and felt pretty good about being able to send the Dawn Warrior packing.  David tried to use Xezat's ability to activate himself when I played the Asmodai before realizing he needed a Wind CP for that, and I don't believe his deck ran any Wind cards at all so I dodged a bullet on that.  Unfortunately I also had to deal with a Lightning Emperor dulling down my only two forwards later on, as well as being a gigantic 9k body.  Late in the game he played Exdeath to return Xezat to the field, and I just could not handle that plus the 9k Emperor.  I believe I lost 6-1 or maybe 6-2, could never really get a footing in the match.

Spoils from Trivia to match my playmat!

Just like that -  the draft was over for me.  As I mentioned above, if I'd known it was single elimination I'm not sure I would've gone through with it.  The process of drafting 4 packs, making your deck, all the mental work that goes into it just to play one Best-of-1 and be eliminated was disappointing.  I'd hoped to at least get to enjoy the limited format through playing 3 rounds with weird decks.  Ultimately it was an anticlimactic whimper to end a very long day.

The Kid, The Prince, and The Road Home

Richie, Lord of the Cube, watches over the All-Star Draft.

Afterward I got to chat with a couple of players casually as the Draft and Top 8 went on, wind down from it all and take in the atmosphere of a community coming together to do what they love.  Perhaps the perfect coda to the day was a kid who sat in the chair next to me, looking through a Mono Earth deck that was sleeved with Opus IV prerelease sleeves.  He was probably 8 or so years old, so excited about his deck, he told me he'd helped Sam Prime sort out his sleeves and afterward Sam had built the deck for him.  He laid the cards out on the table, and I gave him little bits of advice with what he had, like how Grav'iton was great to use with Summons.  We went through his deck to show him all of his Summon options like Yojimbo and Titan.  Seeing young kids be excited for FFTCG (or just playing at all!) is such a rarity that it was a really nice moment away from competition, the meta and strategizing to just see a kid who was excited about his deck in a way that most of us probably haven't experienced in a long time.  He mentioned how much he loved Noctis and I told him Noctis was an Earth card too.  His reaction was the same as most of us when we first heard Noctis was an Earth card -- he didn't believe me so I had to pull up the picture to prove it.  Afterward somebody sat down at the other end of the table and opened their prize packs while the kid told them they needed to open a Noctis in their packs -- no pressure, right?  Sadly, Noctis was MIA.

Congratulations Ian!

By the end, we were all exhausted but those who stayed still found excitement in the conclusion of Top 8.  Congratulations to Ian Velez on his win, he got quite the haul in prizing to take home! (It's a good thing he didn't have to take all of that on a plane ride home, right?)  The cleanup process actually went pretty quick at the venue with as much help as there was, and we barely managed to vacate before they would've been ready to kick us out.  I made my way back to Ivalice with James and Kayla, but between exhaustion and an early flight for me the next day, sleep was calling.  The next day would bring another 5:30 alarm to get ready for a 6:30 Lyft to catch an 8:30 flight so I could land in California at 11:30 and finally get some real rest.  Wait, did I say rest?  I meant go to work from 12:30-7:30.

Overall, it was an incredible trip and experience to get to see and spend time with everyone that I did.  I wished I could've stayed through the weekend to hang out more, but luckily I'll get to see a lot of these same folks at Fan Fair next month!  A HUGE thank you to all the new friends I made over the weekend who made me feel so welcome, including Jamie Grantham, Corey Hillman, and Daniel Lockwood.  I've said it before but I'll continue to give my biggest gratitude to James and Kayla Lockwood, who put on an amazing event, are such wonderful people, and who I'm so glad to have had the chance to meet and spend the weekend with, these coasts are too far apart!  Even before Reunion became a Petit Cup I had a feeling that this would set the bar for having FFTCG events be a fun experience to bring together the community (in addition to being a competitive event), and I was not at all disappointed.  I hope to see things only go up from here in the future!

The wall art at Chez Lockwood is seriously top notch!

If you made it this far, congratulations on reading my own personal Opus and thanks so much for your time and letting me tell my story.  You can keep up with the Zodiac Braves and all of our FFTCG content on this blog, and at www.facebook.com/ZodiacBravesFFTCG.  This is Fake Blake, signing out.

*******************************************
FF Trivia Quiz from Reunion! (Answers at the bottom)

1. What is Squall's last name?

A. Gunblade
B. Lionheart
C. Seed
D. Leonhart


2. In Final Fantasy Tactics, who is Ramza's father?

A. Beowulf
B. Balbanes
C. Dycedarg
D. Balthier


3. Who is on the cover of the Opus III Box?

A. Firion
B. Sephiroth
C. Cloud
D. Lightning


4. Who is Cecil's uncle?

A. Golbez
B. Kluya
C. Fusoya
D. Yang


5. Who betrays the protagonists in Final Fantasy II?

A. Leon
B. Guy
C. The Emperor
D. Maria


6. Which Chocobo can summon a small meteor?

A. Black Chocobo
B. Fat Chocobo
C. Green Chocobo
D. Red Chocobo


7. What is Golbez's real name?

A. Lunarian
B. Kluya
C. Cecildore
D. Theodore
  

8. What is the name of Freya's lost love in Final Fantasy IX?

A. Kain
B. Ricard
C. Sir Fratley
4. King of Burmecia


9. What is Lightning's real name?

A. Claire
B. Serah
C. Faris
D. Melissa


10. In FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, who is the leader of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn?

A. Minfilia
B. Thancred
C. Shantotto
D. Warrior of Light


11. What is the name of Noctis' car in Final Fantasy XV?

A. Regalia
B. The Enterprise
C. Hot Rod
D. Excalibur


12. What element does the Noctis Opus 7 card reside with?

A. Light
B. Dark
C. Earth
D. Lightning


13. What single card is banned from "Title Format"?

A. Sephiroth
B. Jessie
C. Wedge
D. Maria


14. What is the name of Hildibrand's father in Final Fantasy XIV?

A. Godbert
B. Nashau
C. Humphrey
D. Thancred


15. What is the name of Lasswell's weapon?

A. Purple Lightning
B. Ragnarok
C. Excalipur
D. Buster


16. What is the secret password to unlock the Miqo'te outfit in FFXIII: Lightning Returns?

A. Chit Chat Give me the cat
B. Meow Meow Choco-Chow
C. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right
D. Kupo Kupo


17. What creature carries the chalice in solo play of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

A. Malboro
B. Cactuar
C. Moogle
D. Chocobo


18. What item is used to remove Blank's petrification in FFIX?

A. Remedy
B. Golden Needle
C. Supersoft
D. Ribbon


19. In Final Fantasy X, Seymour belongs to what race?

A. Guado
B. Spiran
C. Ronso
D. Maechen


20. What is the name of the upcoming 2019 FFXIV expansion?

A. Shadowbringers
B. Stormbringers
C. Shroudbringers
D. Sorrowbringers


21. What job/class does not belong in Final Fantasy 1?

A. Warrior
B. Red Mage
C. Thief
D. Dragoon


22. In FFTCG, how many booster packs come in a sealed booster box?

A. 36
B. 32
C. 24
D. 216


23. In FFTCG, what job is General Leo?

A. Captain
B. Hero
C. Soldier
D. General


24. In FFTCG, if you control Aerith, what is Zack 1-012R's power level?

A. 7000
B. 9000
C. 8000
D. 6000


25. How much damage does Bahamut 1-108L deal to 2 Forwards that the opponent controls?

A. 9000
B. 8000
C. Remove 1 Forward, Break 1 Forward
D. 10000


********************ANSWERS*********************

This is Mira.  Mira is Best Cat.  However, if you dull her she does NOT let you search for a monster.

1. D    
2. B    
3. B    
4. C    
5. A    
6. D    
7. D    
8. C    
9. A    
10. A    
11. A    
12. C    
13. B    
14. A    
15. A    
16. B    
17. C    
18. C    
19. A    
20. A    
21. D    
22. A    
23. A    
24. C    
25. D