Hello everyone. FF-TCG Producer Tarou Kageyama here. I wanted to elaborate on the “Cast” terminology, which was introduced a little while ago, in a “Card of the Week article describing Lani [12-018H], a new card who will be making her appearance in the “Opus XII: Crystal Awakening” set. Since this concept ties into the difference between using a summon or ability to place a card onto the field, and playing a card by paying the CP on the card itself, I would like to walk you through this using some examples.
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・Cast
So, what does it mean to “cast,” anyway? I wanted to make this clear before I went into describing what is and is not “casting.” First, to “cast” a card is to pay the cost noted on the crystal on the top left corner of the card and place it onto the field if it’s a character, or summon the card if it’s a summon. In other words, the typical way of using the card is considered “casting.”
In addition, even if the cost of the card was reduced to zero due to some kind of effect, or if you no longer have to pay a cost, as long as the card had some kind of cost associated to it, then you are “casting” the card. I think a good example of this would be Golbez [2-109H]. The cost to play Golbez onto the field is reduced by 2 for each [Job (Archfiend)] of a different name put into your Break Zone. In other words, if you have four, the cost is reduced to zero. In this instance, you didn’t actually pay any CP, but you have cast this card. Alternatively, bringing forth a summon card without paying the cost, like you see in Garnet [11-110L]’s or Minwu [6-123L]’s abilities, will still be considered “casting” the card even if you didn’t pay a cost, just like in the case of Golbez [2-109H].
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・What is not “casting”
Conversely, let’s look at what is not considered “casting.” First, when a character is placed onto the field using a summon or an ability, then that is not considered to be “casting.” So, taking a card out of the Break Zone and placing it onto the field with Phoenix [5-019L] or Devout [1-048C], or making your opponent play a card out of their hand using Chaos, Walker of the Wheel [3-071H] are not considered “casting.” Also, whenever you bring out a card like Noel [5-150S] onto the field using his own action ability, as long as you are not paying the cost at the top left, it is not considered to be “cast.”
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Now as for summons – anytime you bring forth a summon, it is always considered to be “cast.” With the aforementioned Garnet [11-110L], you might think it isn’t “casting” a card because you are using her ability to summon, but the effect of the ability is to bring forth a summon, so it is considered “casting.” If there was an ability, however, that would only activate the effect of the summoned being, then you would not consider it as “casting” the card. For example, EX Bursts fall into that category. When a card is placed in the Damage Zone and an EX Burst is activated, the effect of the summon is resolved but the summon itself was not brought forth, so it is not considered to be “cast.”
・In closing
From “Opus XII: Crystal Awakening” and beyond, there will be cards that would matter whether or not it was cast. Some of them tie into new strategies, and so I hope you remember this mechanic. Until next time. I would’ve loved to write up reports on events and whatnot around this time of year, but it seems that will still be ways away.