Removed From Game: Jeff Migliore

Welcome back to Removed From Game, where we speak with players from our Circuit after the tournament about their deck, the tournament, and the meta!  This time we're speaking with Jeff Migliore, who won last month at Trial 2 - Shemhazai at Anime Imports in Pacifica, CA.  If you missed our write-up of the event, you can find that here.  This was the first event we've ever held there and it was a great opportunity not only to get our locals back together in this new meta, but also to meet up with the San Francisco crew!  Some of them have been longtime regulars of the circuit through its 5 seasons, and others were playing at a circuit event for the first time (and we were very glad to have them!).

This led to an excellent turnout of 21 players, despite the fact that many of our regular stalwarts couldn't make it that weekend! (There was not a Brian to be found anywhere...)  The top cut that day included some real surprises like a Golbez deck and Mono Fire!  Jeff played an Earth/Wind deck that went 4-1 in Swiss and then beat all three challengers in the Best of 3 to claim victory.

Image courtesy of FFDecks.com

Welcome Jeff and congratulations on your success at Trial 2!  We wanted to take a few moments to pick your brain about the deck you played and how the Opus VII Meta is shaping up, so thanks for taking the time to chat with us!

We've seen you play Ice a lot for a while now, but for this tournament you played Earth/Wind.  What was your process in deciding what to play for the tournament?  Had you played this deck much prior to bringing it to Trial 2?

Well after the banning of Thaumaturge and Gesper, I looked at Mono Ice mid-range but I wasn't thrilled.  I then looked at Ice/Earth and just couldn't see a lot of synergy and didn't like that anything untargetable would destroy the deck.  When it comes to Earth, it has such great value and I doubled up on that theme with Wind.  I've never played Earth/Wind in a tournament and it seemed like a good time to try it out given Opus VII had just become legal.  I only played the deck a few times before the tournament.  I've never played with Wind, but I have played with Earth cards when I played Scions a couple of times so that helped.

         

                                  

                                      Nope.

Not you, either.

As you mentioned, this was the first Circuit Event since the ban on Gesper and Thaumaturge went into effect.  Did the tournament feel different knowing those cards wouldn't be in the meta?  Did it affect how you built your deck at all?

Yes, it definitely changed the way I built the deck.  I wasn't afraid of building a deck that needed to build backups.  I could build towards the grind of value of CP turn after turn to eventually snowball and win.  I felt Earth was strong (Wol/Cecil/Hecatoncheir), and so I wanted to continue that theme and Wind made the most sense.  Dadaluma and Cactuar have a very strong synergy in the deck.  Most of the cards in my deck just generate value for me.  Zidane is great and can be supported by Wol/Hecatoncheir/Chaos, Walker of the Wheel.  I have the FFXI engine with Semih Lafihna/Star Sibyl/Kam'lanaut/Mog(XI).  Mog being able to search for anything is pretty great which enables me to include one-ofs in the deck.

This early into a new set, there's a lot of scrutiny on the newest cards and how they fit in with the existing card pool.  I see that your deck ran 1 Opus VII Krile, 3 Noctis, and 2 Galdes.  How did those cards perform for you throughout the day?  Are there other Opus VII cards you're looking to try in this deck?

Noctis - He did okay; I mostly put him in to fend off aggro decks with sub-7k Forwards.  He's also useful if you get an EX Burst on 6 points of damage or have the CP to activate his effect.  I didn't realize until about round 4 or 5 that he has a synergy with Cactuar (which is especially useful if you get +2k from Wol as well).  I feel Noctis will shine more in decks that have anthems and I wish I had only ran 2 copies instead.

Galdes - Now this guy is great!  He fit really well in my deck and just has so much utility.  He can block and kill 13k forwards, or just reduce a forward on his way out when he is removed.  He's searchable in my deck via Kam'lanaut and he can return a Cactuar from my Break Zone.  All of this on an 8k body for just 3CP.

Krile - I threw her in as a one-of because I didn't know what to expect for Opus VII and she had some value to me.  She is on curve, could help with fixing CP (for Summons), and is great to have out when I use Hecatoncheir.  Hecatoncheir was my main focus on having her out but she didn't have a lot of impact during the tournament.  I would have easily preferred running 2 Krile and 2 Noctis instead.  I'm not 100% sold on her like Galdes, but she was a new card and that's always fun to play.

Earth/Wind has become a staple of the meta for a long time now, and everyone knows to expect things like Dadaluma + Cactuar, Wol, Y'shtola, Semih Lafihna + Star Sibyl, etc.  Strategically, how did you play the deck?  What would you say is the ideal first few turns to get the deck running?

I would try to go full economy with 2CP Backups if my opponent lets me.  Sometimes they would force me to drop a Wol or Dadaluma early (or RNG forced me) to block damage.

Ideal first turn would be something like Chaos/Semih, Mog, and Miner.  Then flow into Galdes/Wol/Zidane.  I always tried to play Zidane first, then follow up next turn with Wol to make Zidane 9k and start picking apart their hand or at least gain information on how I should approach my turns.

Boys with this haircut have a 70% chance of stealing your Job Girl.

Personally, I don't think I've seen Earth/Wind decks using the Opus VI Zidane/Chaos, Walker of the Wheel combo but Zidane is always a high-priority target when he enters the field and this deck already has plenty of OTHER high-priority targets for your opponent (Wol, Dadaluma, etc.).  Were you able to get that combo rolling during the tournament?

That's what I loved about adding the Zidane/Chaos Walker combo.  I'm forcing my opponent to make tough decisions because everything I play has high value and can spiral out of control.  Zidane also made sense to me because of Opus VII having a lot of enter the field/on attack triggers and I didn't know what to expect.  Additionally, I added in Y'shtola to further protect my high priority targets (or to go wide without fear of Shantotto).  

Are there any matchups that you've found to be a challenge to play against?

The biggest challenge I faced was Mono Water Fusoya.  It has a similar game plan of winning through value via ExBurst/Vikings/card draw.  I didn't get to play test much and maybe I could pilot it better next time.  Mono Water Fusoya would just counter a lot of my actions via returning forwards to hand or Famfrit.  It was hard to keep things on the field as they slowly built up, played 3 Famfrits, Lenna into Knights, etc.

Playing against Earth/Wind or mostly Earth decks felt like a grind and is difficult.  It usually came down to who could counter the other player's battle trick.  A success or two of doing that would snowball the game for you usually.

Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us!  We look forward to seeing what you bring to the next Trial and wish you luck in hanging on to 1st place in the standings!

For coming in 1st, he won an all-expenses paid trip to......wait, no he didn't!