I am on a mad catching up spree with videos. Love it!! The amount of times I've Planet Protector'd + Blitz ace'd omg hahahahaha love the vids keep it up!!
I think jihl Nabatt has to be on my list. She is a 2 cost. She can stall your opponent allowing you to build your board when played. She can allow you to swing for game when your opponent thinks they have blockers up. If you draw multiples she has an S ability so she's not a dead draw. And the best part of all, she is an EX burst. She's not a kill spell but she can definitely be a game winning play
Great video Joe! :) I think you're spot on with those insights, especially Leviathan and Yuna. Looking past the board state they are so resource efficient, Yuna is basically several cards in one and I feel bouncing is so effective because, especially with bigger forwards, your opponent will have to re-discard to bring it out again. Plus as an ice player I can't count the number of times an EX burst has won me the game. Odin is essentially play a card(4CP) break a card(4CP or
Great Video as usual :-) keep up. I actually like this "the 10 best cards (in my opinion) in Set xx" and i was also so suprised to recognize that SO many good cards are just commons and uncommons and Rare. I'm a yugi player and i'm really not used to it xD when i introduced this game to other yugi players they where also happy to see that they don't have to spend hundrets of EUR into the deck just to get a playset of ONE single card :-) instead for 80 EUR or so you have a good deck (if you don't add L Cloud maybe)
I'm glad to see you changed your mind on Lightning L (we had a discussion about this in a previous video). Though I'm surprised you placed Leviathan over Odin 4, personnaly I'm Water player more than Thunder so I do agree Leviathan is beast card but for me Odin (both) is what made the Lightning (the element) so popular, even more with Cloud L being one of the best drop of the game. But I agree with your entire list beside that, oh god... the wind back up, they are just so good, sometimes I have to restrain myself from splashing Wind just to run Aerith/Djidane and eventually Maria
Nice list mate looking good I am not sure arith is no1 but its definitely needs to be on the list its a shame I don't see much play of it. most preferred the Maria back up in my local meta
With your honourable mentions. I run mainly run a Wind/Earth deck and personally I have to say shantotto is hands down the best card in my deck imo. She has won me countless games, where either I was falling behind or we were in a stalemate, and because of how I built my deck(it's designed for fast recovery after field wipe.) I have turned it around. I've even won matches where I'm on 5 or 6 points of damage and only dealt 1 or 2 and then I shantotto, gain advantage and win. The other thing is about Golbez. In my local meta we have two Golbez decks and they usually clean up. I have beaten one of them once, but it's usually a struggle till the end with them. To the point I may have to give up on my current deck and build a new one that can deal with him better if I want a chance at first place. Last local drafts it came down to me VS a Golbez deck for first place. Sad to say I lost that final match =P
Trust me, I really wanted to put Shantotto in, as I also play her every time I play Earth (which is frequently!) but as I said in the video, there are a lot of great cards in this set. Had it been a list of cards to hold onto for the future (a list I plan to make), you can be sure she's on there!
When I first started playing, seeing her as a 7 cost backup I wondered if she was even worth playing. But after playing her a lot, she is a now a guaranteed two of in any earth deck for me. I even find myself wanting to purposefully fall behind just use her, but I try not too. Regardless it's rare for me not to use her at least once in match. Haven't used her twice yet. But was about to in the Golbez match I mentioned before. I destroyed the first one with Hect to prepare but couldn't hold on long enough to drop the second.
Nice choices, good job joe! In my eventual list i'd make a few changes, like prishe instead of squall and bahamut instead of leviathan. Mainly because Squall is 6k only so he'easilly removable by damaging summons and abilities and by being a 3 cost he can get odin'd aswell, while prishe is really harder to get rid of, she's the best wall in the game atm imho. As for Bahamut, i play it a lot, i've played it a lot and it made me win so many games i lost the count with. It's something really not explainable, you really have to feel it on your skin in order to get what i'm trying to say! Bahamut makes a huge difference in the game balance, a lot more than leviathan, 100% of the times i played it, i won that game.
Unless I missed it, there's only one change I would make. That Tidus whose limit lets you attack for as many times as you've taken damage is really broken if you have an even slightly established board imo.
Dark Utopia I purposefully didn't put Tidus on this list because without Aerith or a way to stop him from dying, his ability is extremely risky and only relevant when you're losing, if it gets stopped, it's relatively certain that you won't come back from it because the cost is intensive and leaves a gap between paying the cost and getting the effect, similarly to Lightning (who honestly, now I wish I'd put Golbez or Bahamut in her place...), it's amazing when it goes off, but in my experience, ex bursts counter this EXTREMELY heavily as well, meaning there's one too many cons to a wonderful play
That's fair. :) I was just thinking that with the one game match format that the game has going right now (which honestly I can't stand), EX burst cards aren't being represented as well as they should be (mainly talking about Golbez.Deck). But yeah, I totally see your point.
You're right in that EXs aren't represented properly, but they damn well should be! It's an entire mechanic thats being very ignored because it's somewhat luck based, but in a best of 1 format, I'd much rather play the odds in my favour than not, and cards like Leviathan and Yuna are extremely strong anyway, so while I wouldn't skew my deck just to run a large number of EX's, I'll certainly make a strong effort to make sure there's a decent number in there!
I am surprised not to see Prishe in the top 10 Joe! Your arguments against Prishe apply equally to Squall, and your primary case in defense of Squall is that he trades for her? I appreciate you felt you had to put an Ice card in there somewhere, but I think an objective analysis would put her above him.
I do love me some Prishe, trust me, it's damn hard to pick just 10 cards for this list! XD My case for Squall wasn't Prishe in particular so much as the amount of value he provides for 3CP, and Prishe is a great example of a unit bigger than him that he CAN outright win a fight with.
I more or less agree with everything, but I do think that Golbez should have been there somewhere. Wining tournaments left and right, me must do something right. :) Have you played any non-backup Golbez decks?
I've played against a couple of the 'Golgamesh' decks going around and found that Water can outpace a lot of what they do simply because the backupless decks have to drop so much in order to play what they want. It has a scary early game, but if you can survive the first few turns while getting backups down, you can win the attrition war pretty solidly. This is only my experiences though, and I don't claim to speak for everyone :)
With Chocobo Chick and Dajh in a close equal second! (Actually tried running this deck for a while with all the backup activate effects in wind, it was... interesting)
So since you said Cloud is the measuring stick for Light based cards where would you say the new Warrior of Light falls in comparison? Just curious for your opinion on the matter since it feels ok but not as good as Cloud unless they add in a Warrior of Light for Earth and Wind just to give him more diversity in his options if you didn't draw the Light one first.
Am I missing something, how does Cloud counter Zidane (Can't be blocked by 4< and can't be targeted by abilities)? I don't mean to be pedantic, just want to know if I've been playing wrong lol
Movie Trialers Clouds Meterorain ability doesn't target (because it hits everything) and will almost always kill Zidane even if he is boosted by Maria :)
I found myself agreeing with a lot of your choices but I personally believe that Golbez is the best card in the game because he is completely meta-defining, even moreso than Winwu is. I've got an about 10 person weekly local tournament that I go to and our meta drastically changed the day someone brought a Golbez deck. I would contest that Prishe counters Golbez because even though our pool of Golbez targets is limited, there are some exceptional units that Golbez can bring out that make Prishe's life extremely difficult, such as Zidane, Mime, or fire Warrior of Light. Additionally, Golbez decks also run cards like Seraphie to recycle Cait Siths and the backup variants utilize Red Mage and Sage for additional pressure. Prishe really isn't as much of a problem for Golbez in the same way that 5 cost Yuna is.
I've played against quite a lot of Golbez, and I don't know whether it's because I play a lot of Water, and therefore Leviathan and Yuna, which are natural counters to Golbez, but I've never found him all that terrifying. Though I understand completely why you would think that, as unchecked, he is utterly terrifying :)
The bad Golbez decks that rely on Golbez are easy to counter, sure, but the correct deck with Golbez in it is Golgamesh, the deck with 90+% forwards (usually 48). The ACTUAL reason that deck is so obscene is Gilgamesh C. Turning every Gilgamesh in your hand into a FREE kill spell is just absurd not to mention he's got the same stats as Cloud INCLUDING Brave for some reason. Additionally, the other 2 Gilgameshes are WAY better than the other 2 Clouds. Golbez is just an incidental win condition/game swing that fits too conveniently with Gilgamesh C. Neither of them would be nearly as strong without the other so I'd put them together at slot number 1 because they create the only true tier 1 deck; that is, the only deck which very clearly stands above all other decks. Trust me, once you experience the deck piloted by someone who knows what he's doing, you'll realise how oppressive it is.
Again, I've heard a lot about Golgamesh, and Water is a lovely counter to it provided you can keep your hand up, and therefore overwhelm both Gilgamesh and Golbez. I've been experimenting with a lovely Fire/Water deck that I've been keeping to myself, but I might end up sharing it with everyone to see what they think. Would you be so kind as to give me a Golgamesh decklist you've seen so that I can experiment with it myself? That way I can figure out it's strengths and weaknesses before making an informed opinion :D
If you think starter gilgamesh is the heart and soul of Golgamesh.dek then you're mistaken. It's just another part of the gilgamesh engine. Both other gilgameshes are affected by Leviathan and Yuna, Golbez cries at Yuna, Minwu makes blocking super easy. I can understand why he thinks water is a good counter, you have to look at the grand scheme of things.
Joesephyr Haven't given it too much thought but based on the games I've played: 10) strongest sword gilgamesh 9) lann 8) jihil nabat 7) Golem, it will only become better as we get more first strike cards 6) Tifa, not sure which is better but both have won me many games. 5) Terra, I prefer rare terra but two of each works well in a deck. 4) Red mage (fire) 3) Minwu, because it's defined my local meta. 2) Maria 1) Delita. The number ordering might change and picking top 10 is hard but those would be my picks.
Joesephyr Delita is amazing, I usually use him to break Jessie on the play in my fire/earth deck because then I can search for either cloud or Tifa again if I play another,not necessarily an original play but a good one. also Delita's S skill is a threat an cause your opponent to hesitate guarding
Joesephyr by the way I can't remember if you mentioned him in your underrated video but forward Kimarhi is an underused considering how useful his skill is, I mean my most regular opponent loves to copy promo sephiroth's skill and then there's Gilgamesh or light cloud
I didn´t like this video at all, im only gonna see it 8 more times becose you have a nice hair. Now for real, GW and i agree 100% with this list, the only thing i also will put in it is 7 mana Odin becose is imposible to play arround it if is a price and can win games alone in dat situation, but you mention it so, 10/10.
Couple of friends and I are getting into this game, we really like it. Your videos have really helped so thank you Joe :)
I am on a mad catching up spree with videos. Love it!!
The amount of times I've Planet Protector'd + Blitz ace'd omg hahahahaha love the vids keep it up!!
I think jihl Nabatt has to be on my list. She is a 2 cost. She can stall your opponent allowing you to build your board when played. She can allow you to swing for game when your opponent thinks they have blockers up. If you draw multiples she has an S ability so she's not a dead draw. And the best part of all, she is an EX burst. She's not a kill spell but she can definitely be a game winning play
She would probably go in over Lightning, now that I think back on it, but ah well :(
Jihl Nabaat deserves an honerable mentioned, I think. You just have to have her in an ice deck.
Also Tama can bring a character of any color you want. as you pay the cost only regardless of the color.
Great video Joe! :)
I think you're spot on with those insights, especially Leviathan and Yuna. Looking past the board state they are so resource efficient, Yuna is basically several cards in one and I feel bouncing is so effective because, especially with bigger forwards, your opponent will have to re-discard to bring it out again. Plus as an ice player I can't count the number of times an EX burst has won me the game. Odin is essentially play a card(4CP) break a card(4CP or
Great Video as usual :-) keep up.
I actually like this "the 10 best cards (in my opinion) in Set xx" and i was also so suprised to recognize that SO many good cards are just commons and uncommons and Rare. I'm a yugi player and i'm really not used to it xD when i introduced this game to other yugi players they where also happy to see that they don't have to spend hundrets of EUR into the deck just to get a playset of ONE single card :-) instead for 80 EUR or so you have a good deck (if you don't add L Cloud maybe)
Great stuff as always :)
Thanks buddy, I try my best XD
I'm glad to see you changed your mind on Lightning L (we had a discussion about this in a previous video).
Though I'm surprised you placed Leviathan over Odin 4, personnaly I'm Water player more than Thunder so I do agree Leviathan is beast card but for me Odin (both) is what made the Lightning (the element) so popular, even more with Cloud L being one of the best drop of the game.
But I agree with your entire list beside that, oh god... the wind back up, they are just so good, sometimes I have to restrain myself from splashing Wind just to run Aerith/Djidane and eventually Maria
Nice list mate looking good I am not sure arith is no1 but its definitely needs to be on the list its a shame I don't see much play of it. most preferred the Maria back up in my local meta
With your honourable mentions. I run mainly run a Wind/Earth deck and personally I have to say shantotto is hands down the best card in my deck imo.
She has won me countless games, where either I was falling behind or we were in a stalemate, and because of how I built my deck(it's designed for fast recovery after field wipe.) I have turned it around. I've even won matches where I'm on 5 or 6 points of damage and only dealt 1 or 2 and then I shantotto, gain advantage and win.
The other thing is about Golbez. In my local meta we have two Golbez decks and they usually clean up. I have beaten one of them once, but it's usually a struggle till the end with them. To the point I may have to give up on my current deck and build a new one that can deal with him better if I want a chance at first place.
Last local drafts it came down to me VS a Golbez deck for first place. Sad to say I lost that final match =P
Trust me, I really wanted to put Shantotto in, as I also play her every time I play Earth (which is frequently!) but as I said in the video, there are a lot of great cards in this set. Had it been a list of cards to hold onto for the future (a list I plan to make), you can be sure she's on there!
When I first started playing, seeing her as a 7 cost backup I wondered if she was even worth playing.
But after playing her a lot, she is a now a guaranteed two of in any earth deck for me. I even find myself wanting to purposefully fall behind just use her, but I try not too. Regardless it's rare for me not to use her at least once in match.
Haven't used her twice yet. But was about to in the Golbez match I mentioned before. I destroyed the first one with Hect to prepare but couldn't hold on long enough to drop the second.
Ayyyyy good to see my boi cloud getting the rep he deserves :)
Honourable mention for me would be Gilgamesh. Individually each one isn't necessarily AMAZING, however together they make a very adaptive trio.
Great video as always Joe, what deck are you running currently?
Nice choices, good job joe!
In my eventual list i'd make a few changes, like prishe instead of squall and bahamut instead of leviathan.
Mainly because Squall is 6k only so he'easilly removable by damaging summons and abilities and by being a 3 cost he can get odin'd aswell, while prishe is really harder to get rid of, she's the best wall in the game atm imho.
As for Bahamut, i play it a lot, i've played it a lot and it made me win so many games i lost the count with. It's something really not explainable, you really have to feel it on your skin in order to get what i'm trying to say! Bahamut makes a huge difference in the game balance, a lot more than leviathan, 100% of the times i played it, i won that game.
Unless I missed it, there's only one change I would make. That Tidus whose limit lets you attack for as many times as you've taken damage is really broken if you have an even slightly established board imo.
Dark Utopia I purposefully didn't put Tidus on this list because without Aerith or a way to stop him from dying, his ability is extremely risky and only relevant when you're losing, if it gets stopped, it's relatively certain that you won't come back from it because the cost is intensive and leaves a gap between paying the cost and getting the effect, similarly to Lightning (who honestly, now I wish I'd put Golbez or Bahamut in her place...), it's amazing when it goes off, but in my experience, ex bursts counter this EXTREMELY heavily as well, meaning there's one too many cons to a wonderful play
That's fair. :) I was just thinking that with the one game match format that the game has going right now (which honestly I can't stand), EX burst cards aren't being represented as well as they should be (mainly talking about Golbez.Deck). But yeah, I totally see your point.
You're right in that EXs aren't represented properly, but they damn well should be! It's an entire mechanic thats being very ignored because it's somewhat luck based, but in a best of 1 format, I'd much rather play the odds in my favour than not, and cards like Leviathan and Yuna are extremely strong anyway, so while I wouldn't skew my deck just to run a large number of EX's, I'll certainly make a strong effort to make sure there's a decent number in there!
what about the 2 drop valefor? 3k to all your opponents forwards, and untaps all your back ups
I am surprised not to see Prishe in the top 10 Joe! Your arguments against Prishe apply equally to Squall, and your primary case in defense of Squall is that he trades for her? I appreciate you felt you had to put an Ice card in there somewhere, but I think an objective analysis would put her above him.
I do love me some Prishe, trust me, it's damn hard to pick just 10 cards for this list! XD My case for Squall wasn't Prishe in particular so much as the amount of value he provides for 3CP, and Prishe is a great example of a unit bigger than him that he CAN outright win a fight with.
I more or less agree with everything, but I do think that Golbez should have been there somewhere. Wining tournaments left and right, me must do something right. :)
Have you played any non-backup Golbez decks?
I've played against a couple of the 'Golgamesh' decks going around and found that Water can outpace a lot of what they do simply because the backupless decks have to drop so much in order to play what they want. It has a scary early game, but if you can survive the first few turns while getting backups down, you can win the attrition war pretty solidly. This is only my experiences though, and I don't claim to speak for everyone :)
ruby background is excellent
I am trying to switch it up a lot more since the end of last year, thank you for noticing ;)
My dude, Sazh is truly the best card in the game. Just you wait until I win worlds with Sazh Control.
With Chocobo Chick and Dajh in a close equal second!
(Actually tried running this deck for a while with all the backup activate effects in wind, it was... interesting)
still can't get ahold of this game at all :( still playing ufs
So since you said Cloud is the measuring stick for Light based cards where would you say the new Warrior of Light falls in comparison? Just curious for your opinion on the matter since it feels ok but not as good as Cloud unless they add in a Warrior of Light for Earth and Wind just to give him more diversity in his options if you didn't draw the Light one first.
I agree with you, but until Opus 2 is properly released, it's hard to make comment either way x
Am I missing something, how does Cloud counter Zidane (Can't be blocked by 4< and can't be targeted by abilities)?
I don't mean to be pedantic, just want to know if I've been playing wrong lol
Movie Trialers Clouds Meterorain ability doesn't target (because it hits everything) and will almost always kill Zidane even if he is boosted by Maria :)
There it is! Thank you for the response. :)
was starting to write damn dude you forget that aertith R , but well .. my bad hahaha
I found myself agreeing with a lot of your choices but I personally believe that Golbez is the best card in the game because he is completely meta-defining, even moreso than Winwu is. I've got an about 10 person weekly local tournament that I go to and our meta drastically changed the day someone brought a Golbez deck.
I would contest that Prishe counters Golbez because even though our pool of Golbez targets is limited, there are some exceptional units that Golbez can bring out that make Prishe's life extremely difficult, such as Zidane, Mime, or fire Warrior of Light. Additionally, Golbez decks also run cards like Seraphie to recycle Cait Siths and the backup variants utilize Red Mage and Sage for additional pressure. Prishe really isn't as much of a problem for Golbez in the same way that 5 cost Yuna is.
I've played against quite a lot of Golbez, and I don't know whether it's because I play a lot of Water, and therefore Leviathan and Yuna, which are natural counters to Golbez, but I've never found him all that terrifying. Though I understand completely why you would think that, as unchecked, he is utterly terrifying :)
The bad Golbez decks that rely on Golbez are easy to counter, sure, but the correct deck with Golbez in it is Golgamesh, the deck with 90+% forwards (usually 48). The ACTUAL reason that deck is so obscene is Gilgamesh C. Turning every Gilgamesh in your hand into a FREE kill spell is just absurd not to mention he's got the same stats as Cloud INCLUDING Brave for some reason. Additionally, the other 2 Gilgameshes are WAY better than the other 2 Clouds.
Golbez is just an incidental win condition/game swing that fits too conveniently with Gilgamesh C. Neither of them would be nearly as strong without the other so I'd put them together at slot number 1 because they create the only true tier 1 deck; that is, the only deck which very clearly stands above all other decks. Trust me, once you experience the deck piloted by someone who knows what he's doing, you'll realise how oppressive it is.
Again, I've heard a lot about Golgamesh, and Water is a lovely counter to it provided you can keep your hand up, and therefore overwhelm both Gilgamesh and Golbez. I've been experimenting with a lovely Fire/Water deck that I've been keeping to myself, but I might end up sharing it with everyone to see what they think. Would you be so kind as to give me a Golgamesh decklist you've seen so that I can experiment with it myself? That way I can figure out it's strengths and weaknesses before making an informed opinion :D
What are you doing in Water to counter Gilgamesh? Since he's unaffected by Leviathan and Yuna.
If you think starter gilgamesh is the heart and soul of Golgamesh.dek then you're mistaken. It's just another part of the gilgamesh engine. Both other gilgameshes are affected by Leviathan and Yuna, Golbez cries at Yuna, Minwu makes blocking super easy.
I can understand why he thinks water is a good counter, you have to look at the grand scheme of things.
The meta forming shows most of these are not top 10 from this set, but idk about at this time
Ryan Allyn At the time these were a lot more relevant than they are now, times have changed quite a lot :)
they're all good picks but I'm more of an aggro player whereas this like a more control orientated top ten.
Thats a fair comment, what would yours be? :)
Joesephyr Haven't given it too much thought but based on the games I've played: 10) strongest sword gilgamesh 9) lann 8) jihil nabat 7) Golem, it will only become better as we get more first strike cards 6) Tifa, not sure which is better but both have won me many games. 5) Terra, I prefer rare terra but two of each works well in a deck. 4) Red mage (fire) 3) Minwu, because it's defined my local meta. 2) Maria 1) Delita.
The number ordering might change and picking top 10 is hard but those would be my picks.
Oh man, I love Delita XD
Joesephyr Delita is amazing, I usually use him to break Jessie on the play in my fire/earth deck because then I can search for either cloud or Tifa again if I play another,not necessarily an original play but a good one. also Delita's S skill is a threat an cause your opponent to hesitate guarding
Joesephyr by the way I can't remember if you mentioned him in your underrated video but forward Kimarhi is an underused considering how useful his skill is, I mean my most regular opponent loves to copy promo sephiroth's skill and then there's Gilgamesh or light cloud
I didn´t like this video at all, im only gonna see it 8 more times becose you have a nice hair. Now for real, GW and i agree 100% with this list, the only thing i also will put in it is 7 mana Odin becose is imposible to play arround it if is a price and can win games alone in dat situation, but you mention it so, 10/10.
Jugador Jota FYI my hair is much better now XD it's Kuja coloured lol