Hidden Trials - Card of The Week - Hope [23-051L]

Hello everyone. This is Tarou Kageyama, producer of FFTCG. It’s that time again for Card of the Week, where we introduce cards from new booster packs ahead of their release. We will be introducing cards from Hidden Trials releasing on August 2nd, so please check it out. This week, we'll be looking at a card drawn by Miki Yamashita, Hope [23-051L] from FINAL FANTASY XIII! Let’s get started!

This is an original illustration, so there’s of course a full art card as well. Let’s take a look at the card design first. Yamashita-san’s illustrations are incredibly popular each time, and it looks like the design may make this card a big hit.

Now that we’ve taken in the brilliance of the artwork, let’s look next at its abilities as a FFTCG card. Hope [23-051L] is a Wind Element Forward, and it’s a card with average cost and size, with 3CP and 7000 power. However, this card doesn’t have a “generic card” icon, and has Legend rarity on top of that, so the abilities are in no way average. Let’s take a look at Hope’s two abilities in order.

The first one is an auto ability that gets triggered when the card enters the field, which reads “When Hope enters the field, you may pay 《X》. When you do so, search for 1 Category XIII Character of cost X and play it onto the field.” It's a useful ability since it can be placed directly from the deck onto the field rather than from your hand or the Break Zone. It’s also convenient that the additional 《X》 amount you pay is the cost of the character you put on the field, so you can send out Lightning [15-041L] with 1CP or Lightning [19-138S] with 2CP. What’s even more convenient is that a "character card" becomes searchable, so in addition to your usual Forward cards, monsters such as Typhon [14-049H] and backups with attributes different from Hope's such as Sazh [1-013H], Lumina [13-085R], and Mog (XIII-2) [17-040C] can enter the field with ease. Also, this type of ability has great potential as it becomes stronger as more cards are added later.

The second ability is an action ability which reads, "Dull: Remove Hope from the game. At the beginning of your next Main Phase 1, play Hope onto the field. You can only use this ability during your turn." You can only use this during your turn, so the card will enter the field once your opponent’s turn has passed, but even then, this allows Hope [23-051L] to enter the field and easily activate its first auto ability again! The opponent must take action before Hope is able to use this ability, which includes the Dull icon, or they’ll risk losing a significant edge in the game.

On the other hand, the player using Hope must be wary of cards such as Amaterasu [12-002H]. If its effect is nullified after paying 《X》 CP, you will face a huge disadvantage, instead of gaining an edge.

Nevertheless, Hope [23-051L] 's ability is powerful enough to compensate for this. I hope you'll give it a try.

That's all ‘til next time. Next week, we will introduce two cards, so please stay tuned for more excitement!