Hello, everyone! FFTCG Producer Tarou Kageyama here. I hope you’re enjoying our new series of Card of the Week articles, which started last week and feature cards from the Emissaries of Light booster packs, releasing April 15th. This week, I’d like to introduce you to Luso [16-020L], one of its two Fire Legend cards. Luso is the main character of FINAL FANTASY TACTICS A2: Grimoire of the Rift. He’s been made into several cards so far, but this is his first time as a Fire card. Let’s jump right in and see what sort of card Luso is with his new Element.
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Luso [16-020L] is a 6 CP Forward with 5000 power, and upon first glance, his power may feel like it’s a bit low compared to its cost. However, in FFTCG, it’s a rule of thumb that cards like these will come equipped with powerful abilities.
Luso [16-020L] has two auto-abilities. The first one reads, “At the beginning of the Attack Phase during each of your turns, if you have received 5 points of damage or less, shuffle your deck, then reveal the top card of your deck. If it is a Fire Character, you may play it onto the field.” If your deck is mono Fire, there’s a high chance that Luso will be able to send Characters onto the field every turn! And, since they’re coming from the deck, it won’t decrease the number of cards in your hand. There aren’t any cost restrictions either, so you can play heavier cards like Ran’jit [13-130S] and Tenzen [12-012L]. You can even play Multi-Element characters as long as they have Fire. Drawing a Character who is already on the field (who doesn’t have a “generic card” icon) or a Summon would be considered a miss, but given that the ability can activate every turn, that risk makes sense.
Meanwhile, the other ability mentions, “Damage 6,” meaning it cannot coexist with the first ability, which activates when you have 5 points of damage or less. However, you can think of this one as a powered-up version of the first ability. That’s because the second ability reads, “At the beginning of the Attack Phase during each of your turns, you may search for 1 Fire Character and play it onto the field.” In other words, this is a surefire ability that can bring you the exact card you need, when you need it, rather than giving you an unknown top card of a freshly shuffled deck. Having received 6 points of damage already, you’ll have your back against the wall at this point, and be in a situation where any misstep will result in your own demise. However, the Fire Element includes an array of cards that can deal damage to yourself, so it may not be a bad idea to consider intentionally going down that route.
・Card recommendations
Before we wrap up, I’d like to introduce a few cards that would work well with Luso [16-020L]. Cards like Cid of Clan Gully [5-103R] or Gabranth [9-063L] could be good because they’d allow you to bring Luso [16-020L] into your hand, but neither of them is a Fire card, so they may not work very well for the type of deck intended to go all out with Luso [16-020L]. For those who are looking to lean all the way into the Fire Element, we may see cards like Nael [9-014L], Ran’jit [13-130S], Braska’s Final Aeon [11-015L], Ifrit, Lord of the Inferno [14-006R], and Kojin [14-012C] (a Backup) being used alongside it. I think including him in a mono Fire deck that’s based on Job Samurai wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. You can gain a big advantage if you’re able to pull Tenzen [12-012L] early on, and cards like Cyan [15-006H] or Gosetsu [8-137S] should achieve some delightful results, too. This card looks like it’s sure to shine as a new driving force for mono Fire decks.
What did you think of this week’s card, Luso [16-020L]? That’s it for this week, but I’m hoping that this card has left you itching to construct some decks. Next week, Tim will be introducing a character who seems like they could be found lurking in a library. See you next time!